


Remain Faithful

by auburn



Category: White Collar
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Big Bang, Drama, F/M, M/M, Mystery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-18
Updated: 2012-09-18
Packaged: 2017-11-14 13:45:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 60,172
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/515834
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/auburn/pseuds/auburn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Three years after Peter Burke caught her, Kate Moreau is dead and he's divorced and falling for her artist boyfriend, the prime suspect in her murder.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Remain Faithful

**Author's Note:**

> Ongiara on livejournal provided marvelous art for this story as part of the White Collar Big Bang. You can find it here: [Art for White Collar Big Bang Remain Faithful](http://ongiara.livejournal.com/117976.html)

>   
> _The violence we do to ourselves in order to remain faithful to the one we love is hardly better than an act of infidelity._  
>  François, Duc de La Rochefoucauld, Maxims, 1665

Things Are Different Now

Peter doesn't catch Kate Moreau a second time. Someone else does. Thirteen hours after she escapes from FCI Danbury, he finds her in Caffrey's empty apartment, a bullet hole between her pretty blue eyes.

All he can think or say is, "Damn it, Kate." 

When the SWAT officers rush in, he's still crouched beside her body, shaking his head, his hands dangling empty in front of his knees. He thinks, I was wearing this same suit when I arrested her. Now she's dead. The case won't be his, it'll be NYPD's. He wishes... He doesn't know what he wishes. That she was alive, that he'd never caught her file, that he wasn't here. He wishes things were different.

"Aw, goddamn," the first cop exclaims when he catches a glimpse.

Peter looks down at all that remains of the cleverest criminal he ever chased, a beautiful woman who taunted and teased him for three years, and all he can feel is regret. Her black hair is fanned over the wooden floor, her mouth just parted, and one hand is stretched out, imploring. The hole in her head is obscene.

His knees creak as he stands up again.

Beside him, the cop still looks down at her. "What a fucking waste." 

Peter, though, looks around at the hollow space of the apartment. It's cleaned out, nothing left but Kate and one of Caffrey's paintings left propped where the light falls on it. It's a gray street in Paris, with just the shape of a dark-haired woman glimpsed through a rain wet café's window, and it glows with the sunlight that comes after a downpour. The woman's Kate, of course.

Peter turns in a circle slowly, frowning, trying to understand what happened here. He guesses Kate broke out to find Caffrey, but who killed her, and where the hell is her painter boyfriend? The kid stuck with her no matter what Kate did, attended every day of her trial, visited her in Connecticut every week, stayed in this apartment for years waiting for the day she'd get out.

Where is he?

~*~

A thrift store, especially one just down the block from the Empire (of Cockroaches) Hotel is not Neal's first choice for clothes, but without a job and afraid to touch his bank account, he only has the cash on him to replace his clothes, so it's make do or do without. Being right back where he'd been as a twenty-year old art student before Vincent Adler plucked him out of obscurity all these years later is disheartening. He's got crap for prospects when it comes to getting another job and another place any time soon, not with Fowler dogging his every move.

This is all Kate's fault. Again. He tries to be angry with her, but never quite manages it. This time is no different. Kate is Kate and Neal loves her, no matter how much trouble trails her even now. He'll figure something out.

Mozzie's standing offer to take him on as a partner looks more and more like the best of a slate of bad options. Neal scrubs at the tender skin under his eye where Fowler's thug blacked it. All he wants is to paint; he saw enough of Kate's lifestyle while he was with her in Europe to know it isn't one he wants. Maybe just a few forgeries though...

Losing everything he owns doesn't hurt half so much as losing his paintings and the showing Neal finally lined up after years of recovering some kind of reputation. The job he hates anyway. He only stuck with it so he could live close enough to Kate to visit regularly. Now there's Agent Fowler, dogging him to get to her, and Neal's afraid to go back to Danbury, afraid Fowler will find him again. He'll have to write her, hide a message in a code, so she'll know why he can't see her until he figures out what to do about Fowler.

He grimaces as he flips through the racks. Adler left him with a taste for the finer things and Kate fed it. This blows. Everything here blows too.

He's moving to the next rack when the very well-dressed, older woman in ageless white wool Chanel comes in and begins speaking to the clerk. Listening in isn't nice, but Kate taught him to keep track of his surroundings, so Neal does it anyway. Besides, she's carrying several men's suits along with a great hat, all of it of better quality than anything else in the thrift store.

He keeps thinking he knows who she is and abandons his search through the racks to look at her. She's still a stunner in a dignified way, beautiful dark skin and refined make-up, but just a little weary and sad. Her caramel hair has been cut, colored, and styled in a vaguely retro-sixties look.

The clerk is apparently an idiot and says disdainfully, "Old suits." 

The lady hums her agreement. Since one ring from her fingers costs more than the clerk will make in forty years, she isn't impressed or bothered by his attitude. Neal drifts over and takes a closer look at the suits themselves. Excitement lights his mood and he says to her, "Those are fantastic." 

Her smile is just as pleased as his. "Oh. They belong to my late husband ‒ " 

Recognition finally clicks into place; not the suits, but her face, years younger, painted by her husband. "Byron Ellington," Neal breathes. She's June Ellington. He feels a little starstruck. Of course he recognizes her, he's studied at least some of the portraits done of her over the years, trying to understand how Byron Ellington created emotion from technique so he could paint Kate not just the way she looked, or the way he saw her, but the way she is. Ellington's portraits of his wife were never just of how beautiful she is, but of who she is. They showed so much, Neal feels like he knows her. He remembers fantasizing a life time ago ‒ before Adler, before Kate ‒ that she would walk into the little gallery where he worked and discover his work.

June's smile gets even brighter. " ‒ Byron. He really had great taste in clothes." 

In clothes, art, investments, and wives, as well, Neal thinks, not to mention being one of the most talented artists of his generation, though few people outside the world of collectors know his name. God, Neal wishes he could have met the man. While the Rat Pack were earning their fortunes with their voices, Byron Ellington was painting all over the world, including portraits of some of his more famous contemporaries, while his wife, once a torch singer, built his commissions into a fortune while acquiring an art collection to rival most great museums. One of the first paintings Neal urged Adler to buy was an Ellington; Adler agreed, hoping it would lead to June Ellington investing with him. On Byron's death, the already valuable cityscape no doubt became far more valuable. Neal really wishes he knew where it ended up. Probably in an evidence room somewhere, along with everything else Adler left behind when he fled the US. He feels a rush of relief that she didn't fall for Adler's schemes like so many others did.

He blinks and pushes that memory down. Adler destroyed more lives than Neal's and the part that hurt the worst was always that Kate chose to go to Argentina with the crooked billionaire.

Fingering the fine fabric of a jacket, he asks, "May I?" 

The clerk hands him the jacket and Neal examines it appreciatively. "This is a Devore." The style and tailoring are just as ageless as June's Chanel suit. He covets it. That want, that hunger, that's why he understands Kate. Kate's always so hungry... He pushes those thoughts away and concentrates on the present.

"He was a terrible poker player." 

"Your husband played poker with Sy Devore?" he prompts June.

"He certainly did. And so did I." 

Neal glances up and listens entranced as June explains her husband won the suit from Sy Devore playing back-door draw poker. Her eyes shine with remembered happiness and mischief. This is who Kate could be someday, he thinks, not just smart but wise. Somehow, he and Kate are going to find a way to win themselves what Byron Ellington and his wife had and, if Neal dies, he hopes Kate will remember him the same way Byron is remembered.

"No," Neal teases. She just blows him away and he knows he's smiling like a fool.

June's magnificent, especially the wicked light in her eyes when she laughs and confirms it, "Yes, the guys would even let me sit in once in a while on a hand." There are so many memories behind her eyes. He wants to paint her. "And I was good." 

Of course she was. Neal laughs and reaches for the hat, flipping it onto his head. She catches his hand as he brings it down and studies it. Neal looks and realizes he never got all the paint out of his cuticles.

"I'm so glad to see you appreciate these," June says easily, "I was hoping someone would. I've got a whole closet full of them." 

Neal can't help brightening. "A whole closet?" 

"Mmhm. Well, actually, it's a guestroom attached to Byron's studio, but I haven't used it for anything but storage for years." 

Neal shrugs his way into the jacket, hoping it'll fit, as if he could put on Byron Ellington's talent and success along with his clothes. It does, exquisitely, satin lining sliding over his plain t-shirt like a caress. He settles it into place, straightens the sleeves, and glances up to find June looking at him approvingly.

"Byron used to wear that one whenever we went dancing," she murmurs. "The neighborhood was... let's say it was much nicer then." 

"You live nearby?" Neal blurts.

"Not far." 

He smiles at her the way Kate taught him.

"You're a painter, aren't you?" June asks.

"Not famous." 

June pats his arm. "Not yet." 

Neal gives her a look through his lashes, another of Kate's tricks, and says, "I might be really bad." 

"Not you, dear," June says. "I have an instinct. Besides, Vincent Adler didn't settle for anything but the best before he went on the run, did he?" 

Neal blinks, opens his mouth, and closes it.

"I keep track of Bryon's paintings and who owns them. And who picks them out." 

"Wow." 

Her hand is still on his arm, but he knows the little squeeze she gives it is more about remembering how this jacket felt on Byron than any kind of move on him. "Come have coffee with me," she says. "That studio has been empty too long." 

"Why? You know I worked for Adler ‒ " 

June laughs. "As I understand it, hundreds of people worked for Vincent Adler, and none of them had a clue what that man was up to. So, are you coming with me?" She gives him an impish smile, with a nod to the clerk, who is pretending not to eavesdrop on the two of them. "I do believe he thinks I'm playing Mrs. Robinson. I'd offer to show you my etchings, but you'll have to make do with Byron's art collection." 

The clerk drops one of the suits.

June and Neal both burst out laughing.

~*~

Peter searches Kate's cell, noting pictures, sketches and pastels and watercolors, all by the inimitable hand of Neal Caffrey, the tiny, almost hidden by the bunk, tally of her days imprisoned marked on the wall, and a bundle of letters. They're all from Caffrey too. The man has beautiful penmanship, Peter reflects, wishing his agents' notes were half so legible. Paging through the envelopes shows Caffrey has written Kate twice a week beginning with her first week in Danbury as well as visiting.

The pictures are all of places Peter is relatively sure Caffrey and Kate visited during her whirlwind three year crime spree.

The only other things he finds in her cell are a book from the prison library on growing roses and a fading, worn at the edges photograph of Kate with Caffrey. She's wearing diamonds ‒ stolen or scammed for the evening ‒ and smiling at the camera. Caffrey's smiling at her.

Peter refuses to believe a man who could look at a woman like that could have killed her. It's self-delusion, of course. He's never worked homicide, but he knows love and murder go hand in hand as often as love and happiness, and that's without money and crime added to the mix. He simply doesn't want to believe it, for personal reasons he's not ready to examine, and because to his eyes the evidence doesn't support Caffrey as a killer, no matter what NYPD think.

He takes the picture and the letters and begins interviewing the corrections officers and staff who interacted with Kate the most.

Teresa Buenavista is the only one to add anything substantive to the reports in the BoP file Peter's already read a dozen times since being called in on the case. Kate stayed out of trouble, whether with the other inmates or the staff. No drugs, no fighting, no problems with anyone thanks to her honey tongue. She spent three days in the infirmary with influenza her second year and had a filling replaced her third. With just ten months left of her four year jolt, no one expected her to fly the coop.

"We should've realized something was up," Buenavista says when Peter sits down with her. She has an apple with her. She isn't eating it, just turning it in her hands for something to do. The apple is green as spring and the likely the only fresh fruit in the entire Danbury complex.

"Why?" 

"The boyfriend." 

"Neal Caffrey," Peter says, just to be sure, though he has the visitor's log right in front of him. Caffrey was Kate's only visitor. No one from her family, whoever they are, no other friends or confederates, ever made it up to Danbury. Not even her lawyer showed; apparently she managed everything to do with Kate's incarceration through the mail.

"Her blue-eyed boy." 

Buenavista's broad at the hip, tougher than old leather, and too shrewd to buy anyone's sob story. Minimal make-up but thick lipstick, and no jewelry, not even in her pierced ears, because it's all something for an inmate to grab. Instead, she wears an expensive perfume, one Peter only recognizes because El likes it too. She's a forty-eight year old mother of four, a Marine Corps veteran and former cop, and a ten year veteran of working corrections. So the fond smile that lights her face as she mentions Caffrey surprises Peter. With that effect, Caffrey should have been the con, not Kate. Maybe it's his face or his eyes.

"He was a regular visitor." 

Or maybe it was the way Caffrey showed up like clockwork, every week, same day, same time, according to the record. Buenavista oversaw visitations; she saw Caffrey with Kate. It's why Peter wants to hear anything she has to say.

"First day I saw him, I said he wouldn't be back more than once or twice. A boy as pretty as that, I figured he'd have a new girl as soon as it sunk in Moreau was stuck for the duration. It was almost funny, how freaked out he was," Buenavista says. She shakes her head. Her short cut, iron-gray hair doesn't shift. "Polite as could be, though. Hell, I wish my kids had his manners." 

Peter ducks his head. He remembers Caffrey at Kate's trial and, before that, as the subject of months of surveillance, and knows what she means. Even Kate, for all her cons, never blamed or framed anyone.

"He proved me wrong." She smiles. "Some people just can't stand the waiting, even though they're on the outside. Some of them can't stand coming here. Can't take leaving their sweetie locked up each time. The guilt gets to them, the visits get shorter, then they stop. Caffrey, though, he just kept coming back every week." 

Buenavista obviously admires that sort of steadfastness. Peter does too, but it doesn't surprise him. The disappearance does, though.

"Did he ever try to bring in any kind of contraband?" Peter asks. He's just fishing. Drugs were never Kate's racket and Caffrey's record is clean as a whistle. He can't see Kate pushing or Caffrey supplying or either of them using. Of course there are other varieties of contraband. Every prison has a blackmarket.

Buenavista shakes her head again. "Not him. He wanted to bring Moreau something, he'd check with us if it was alright before bringing it the next week. Never wanted to disappoint her, you know? He knew everyone's name, asked about your kids, made a joke, kept it easy and friendly." 

"How did he and Moreau seem during the visits?" 

She taps her finger along the notch under her nose. "In love. Talked a lot about places they'd been, places they were going to go. What kind of dog they'd get, what kind of house they'd buy, how many kids they were going have, what they'd name them. Always had a smile for her until the last time." 

Peter perks up. "The last time." He checked the record sheet. "Two weeks ago." 

"Two weeks, two days." 

The wooden straight chair under Buenavista creaks as she shifts her weight. She resettles her equipment belt more comfortably, while frowning. Peter guesses she's weighing how much to tell. Not with any intention of lying, only picking and choosing between fact and speculation. He appreciates what insights she can offer that no one else at Danbury can. He knows Neal Caffrey is the key to why Kate broke out.

Kate must have had the escape planned out and set up, even if she decided to go the last time Caffrey visited and not when he didn't show up. Danbury is medium security, but even for Kate Moreau, even if she had outside help, two weeks isn't long enough to plan a jail break.

"Did he break up with her?" 

"No, but he wasn't happy. No wonder either." Her mouth, lush with plum-colored lipstick, pulls down. "Someone beat him down. Just in time for it to look its worst when he visited." 

Peter raises his eyebrows and waits as patiently as he can.

"Split lip, black eye, broken finger," Buenavista answers at last, listing each item with her hands. Dark, cynical eyes meet Peter's own, while her mouth turns down again. "Skittish as hell. Shocky." She pauses again and explains herself: "You get that traumatized vibe off people that've never seen real violence up close. I saw it on enough vics back when I was with the PD." 

Peter sets his hands flat over the record book. The timing must have been deliberate. If Caffrey doesn't show, Kate knows something is wrong; if he does, she sees him marked up and in pain. He tries to imagine Caffrey the way he must have looked to Kate. He doesn't like it.

"You say he looked like a victim. Was he... ?" 

"No way for me to know." 

"Did you ask?" 

"He said it was a car accident," Buenavista says dryly. "Probably told Moreau the same thing. She got pretty quiet after he left, though." 

"She didn't buy it." 

"Hell, no." Buenavista shrugs and looks away, mouth still pursed, hands still playing with the apple. There's something she wants to say or something she thinks she should have seen or done.

Peter waits for whatever she isn't saying until Buenavista gives in.

"I should have pushed. He was scared, Agent Burke." 

"And Kate?" 

Buenavista pauses.

"She was too." 

She leaves the apple, shiny and green, when she walks out. Peter shines it against his coat sleeve briefly then takes a bite out of it and wonders what knowledge he's damned himself to learning by pursuing this case, Caffrey, and Kate again. The flavor is intense, the flesh rich with juice and crisp between his teeth. He's never been able to let something go once he gets his teeth in it. Hughes will back him as long as he can sell the story that Peter's looking for Kate's caches and not her murderer. His gut is telling him there is more to this story than a prison break and a lover's quarrel gone sour and even if he's wrong, he needs to see it to the end.

El's not going to be happy.

Life Can Only Be Understood Backwards

Her bags are packed. The rental car is parked in Peter's usual spot down the street. All of Satchmo's gear is already in it too. All she has to do is tell Peter, snap on Satchmo's leash, pick up her purse, and walk out of the house, her life, and her marriage.

She's waiting for Peter to come home so she can tell him she's leaving him. There's something pathetic and hilarious about that. It's horrible. She's sitting in the dark, with just a light in the kitchen on, because it's impossible to sit in the living room like everything is normal. It's impossible to do anything while she waits except go over and over what brought her to this point. She won't just walk out or leave a note. She's not sure he'd even find a note. She'd need to leave a phone message or send something to his official FBI email if she wanted to be sure Peter sees it.

Satchmo's sitting next to her at the dining room table. He knows something's wrong, the way dogs do, and whines before resting his head on her knee. Elizabeth plays with his soft ears; it's comforting, just not comforting enough, but she's not going to cry. If Peter doesn't come home in the next hour, she's going to have to assume he's working all night again and go to his office to tell him. She doesn't want to do that to either of them.

She will though, because she's not putting this off another night.

The sound of Peter's key in the door lock is a relief. She can tell by the soft shuffle of his shoes that he's exhausted and he's trying to be quiet because he thinks she's asleep upstairs.

"I'm in here, Peter," she calls softly to him.

He switches the overhead light on as he comes in and her heart turns over. Peter looks so tired, so worn, but at the same time there is a fire burning in him. It's been months, but he's still sure that he's going to catch Kate Moreau by watching her boyfriend.

Elizabeth understands that Peter believes that will be the end of it, but of course it won't. There will a trial and sentencing and, once it's done, Peter will find a new case to obsess over. Knowing she'd come in second to the job when she married him was one thing. Realizing she comes in third, after the criminals, is too much.

"Sorry," Peter says, "Berelli's kid's appendix popped. I had to hang around until we could wrangle someone else to take his shift in the van." 

Elizabeth nods. "I hope everything's all right." 

"I got Oswicizc from OC to take over. He wants the over time." 

"I meant with Berelli's child." 

Peter looks taken back and then embarrassed. He pulls out a chair opposite Elizabeth and sits. His smile is sheepish. "I don't know." 

She nods to herself, not surprised, because Peter's focus is narrowed down to Kate and her boyfriend and the rest of the world is just in the way of that. She's just in the way, except for everything she takes care of so Peter can concentrate on his job: the dog, the bills, the house, food, laundry, taxes, maintenance. All while she's trying to build her own business. Peter hasn't noticed in months.

"I think she'll show soon," Peter says. He slouches down in his chair. "Once this is over ‒ " 

Elizabeth holds her hand up to stop him. "I don't want to hear it." Kate, Kate, Kate, she's so sick of Kate Moreau. "I've heard enough about the case and that woman." 

They've sung this song before. She's sick of it. She doesn't think Peter's been unfaithful to her, not in fact, not in fantasy. That's not the problem. The problem is being an afterthought to what's important to him. An affair might have been easier to overlook; she knows plenty of married men cheat without it meaning anything emotionally.

Not that she would have stood still for it if Peter had been unfaithful that way. Just that she could walk away hating him, instead of hurting so much for herself and him.

Satchmo whines and she strokes her palm over his head compulsively.

"I am going to put her away," Peter says and sounds just a little smug. "I'm going to catch her this time." 

Elizabeth hopes he does catch Kate Moreau. She's come to hate the woman without ever meeting her. It won't change the problems in her marriage, though, and that's why she's not waiting any longer.

"That's good. I'm sure you will," she says now.

"El ‒ " 

"I could take the long hours. Bringing home your work. Even knowing you could get hurt or killed, no matter how careful you are," she goes on. "I didn't worry when Kate started sending you cards on your birthday or when she hid her negligée in your baggage for me to find, even though she's young and beautiful and smart." Everything Peter likes, Elizabeth doesn't add, because she doesn't need to.

Peter's scowl is epic. That trick truly did enrage him, Elizabeth knew, because he believed ‒ still believes ‒ that it hurt her. He doesn't see that he's hurt her more than any of Kate's taunts ever could. Even then, even when Elizabeth allowed herself to ask him to pass Kate's case to another agent, Peter couldn't let it go. He thinks another agent might take Kate down with a bullet rather than see her get away.

He still doesn't see why Elizabeth is so angry over Kate, but Peter knows more about Kate's likes and wants than he does Elizabeth's. She could ask him what Kate's favorite scent is or her shoe size and Peter would know. He doesn't know what perfume El wears by preference.

"What are you saying?" 

"I'm leaving." She plucks up the dog leash lying on the table and snaps it to Satchmo's collar. "I'm not taking Satch to be mean. I'm angry, but this isn't about punishment. You're too busy and your schedule is too erratic to take care of him." 

"I'm not in love with Kate Moreau," Peter protests. He's been protesting the same thing since the first time Elizabeth caught a glimpse of a picture of her in the case file he read in their bed. "She's a criminal." 

"I know you're not in love with her." She pauses for a breath before going on. "You're in love with chasing her, pitting your brains against hers, with finding a way to beat her at her game while playing by your rules." 

Peter opens his mouth only to close it wordlessly. Elizabeth nods, relieved he isn't protesting the truth.

"I'm going to stay with Yvonne until I find an apartment. Her building allows pets." 

She pushes the dining chair back and stands. Peter stands too. His big hands are open and oddly helpless looking as he watches her pick up her purse.

"You're going. Just like that?" he asks.

"I sat here all evening, waiting for you to come back, so I could tell you. I couldn't be sure you'd realize I was gone otherwise." 

"I don't understand. Are you saying you don't love me?" 

She's crying now, hot tears sliding down, and her eyes are going to be a swollen mess tomorrow, but she can't stop. "Of course I love you. I can't just turn it off." 

He looks so lost, she wants to wrap her arms around him and hold on until everything is better. Everything is never going to be better unless Peter changes and that's the one thing Elizabeth can't ask of him. She loves the man he is. She just can't live on his leftovers any longer.

"But you're divorcing me." 

She hasn't said it out loud, but Peter's smart. He's already figuring out how this must end given how Elizabeth feels now.

"I think so." 

"We could try counseling." 

"When?" she asks gently. "After this case? The next case? The one after that?" Purse in one hand, Satch's leash in the other, she starts for the door. "I paid this month's bills and left the checkbook for the household account in the bedroom dresser. I cleaned out anything that will go bad if it isn't cooked soon from the refrigerator. There's a casserole in the oven too, if you haven't eaten." Her voice is getting thick. She has to get out before she breaks down into a complete snotty mess.

Satch's toenails click on the floorboards in counterpoint to her high heels.

"That's it?" Peter sounds incredulous.

"I'm sorry," she chokes out as she fumbles the door open.

"El, we can fix this." 

"I know you think so, but I don't." She's hurrying now, before she wavers, because she knows Peter and that he'll try to change her mind. "Good night, Peter. Take care of yourself." 

She'll make an appointment with a lawyer tomorrow.

No Kindness Can Cure

Mozzie lets himself into the safehouse as quietly as possible. He's hoping Neal is still sleeping. In case he's not, Mozzie's folded the newspaper to hide the headline and photograph. He wants to brace Neal before the news blindsides him.

Himself, he isn't sure how he feels about the news. Not good. He knew Kate before Neal ever came into his life. He taught her a lot, maybe too much, and there are days he thinks he's responsible for who she became. Some of those days he's proud; he taught the Queen of Cons. Some days, especially the ones when Neal is so down he won't even sketch or when Mozzie remembers being cleaned out, he's angry and ashamed.

Neal's still on Mozzie's lumpy couch, an afghan of questionable origins pulled up to his shoulders. The morning sun teases a hint of golden-brown from his ruffled, seal-dark hair. It picks out the fading remnants of the black eye and the healing split in his lip. The same light turns the old floorboards almost blond where the stain has worn away.

It's going to be a crap day. There's no reason to force Neal to face it any sooner than he must. Mozzie leaves him to sleep as long as he can. Mozzie doesn't have many friends and none of them as trustworthy as Neal. He wants to do what he can to take care of him.

The newspaper goes on the counter of the tiny kitchenette. The pastries Mozzie picked up stay in their bag, while he thoroughly cleans the fruit he bought and slices it. That done, he puts the percolator on the two-burner stove top and starts it. The smell will likely wake Neal.

He has two mugs out and plates of pastry and fruit ready when Neal shifts and wakes. "Hey." 

"Ah, you've decided to grace me with your consciousness," Mozzie greets him.

Neal's smiles are works of art. Every time he's graced with one Mozzie wishes several things. One, that some great artist could capture it in paint and canvas. Two, that he'd found Neal and taught him, rather than Kate. Three, that Neal hadn't fallen in love with Kate. Sometimes, four, that he wasn't so boringly straight, because if Mozzie weren't, he would have seduced Neal years ago.

"Breakfast?" Neal pads over and helps himself to the second plate. Despite the splint on his pinky, he's as deft as Mozzie. It's such a waste he's never been interested in learning to pickpocket. "You're being too nice." 

He snags a piece of melon and chews it while Mozzie pours them both coffee.

"Seriously, what's wrong?" Neal asks.

"Let's eat first," Mozzie tells him.

Of course, that stops Neal, who looks up from his plate to study Mozzie's face. Apprehension flits over his features. So much has gone wrong in the last three weeks, he's expecting another blow, but no one could be ready for the form it's taken.

"Do I need to sit down?" 

"Maybe you'd better." 

Neal takes his plate and his coffee back to the couch and sinks down on it. Mozzie abandons his ‒ he has no appetite anyway ‒ and carries the newspaper over instead. He sits next to Neal, close enough to feel the tension locking Neal's body up.

"Neal." 

"Just tell me." 

Mozzie opens the newspaper to the headline. _Escaped Felon Murder Victim_. They even put Kate's picture above the fold. Even dead, beautiful women sell newspapers.

Neal takes the paper and reads it silently, his head bowed. The newsprint darkens and runs, blotting the tear drops falling onto it into smears. _"Kate... "_ Neal chokes, raw and disbelieving.

There's no help for it, no stopping the agonized sobs, but Mozzie pats at Neal's bent back, trying to offer some comfort anyway. 

~*~

Peter spreads the files over the conference room table. Hughes isn't pleased over time wasted on a jail breaking convict and a murder investigation that technically belongs to the NYPD, but the Harvard crew are following leads on the unit's case load and Peter's got enough career collateral to receive some slack. Reese Hughes is a good boss and one who knows that even before his divorce Peter gave the Bureau more of his time and mind than is technically part of the job. He won't say anything about using Bureau resources.

Diana and Jones come in and look at the reports Peter has picked out as relevant. Diana wasn't around when Peter was chasing Kate, but Clinton Jones had just joined the unit as a probationary agent. He picks up a sheaf of surveillance photographs taken with a long lens and says, "I think I took some of these." 

"So you remember Caffrey." 

"Sure." 

Peter nods to himself. "You think he could have killed Kate?" 

The answer doesn't come immediately. Jones likes to take enough time to think his answers through and base them on facts and not instinct. He's steady.

"I wouldn't think so." 

"Yeah, me neither," Peter agrees.

Jones hesitates then takes the plunge. "Why are we on this? It isn't a federal case anymore." 

Jones is right, of course. Diana knows it too. Peter looks back at them both and says, "NYPD are looking at Caffrey. No one else." He pauses. "You don't have to work on this if you don't want to." He won't hold it against either of them.

After a long beat, Jones rolls his shoulders. "Beats going over another mortgage fraud case." 

Diana looks up from reading the file on Kate's death again. "It doesn't gel. Location is the only real tie to Caffrey and even that's iffy. According to this, all his stuff was gone." 

"Except one painting," Jones corrects.

Nothing has been declared but it's understood between them.

"I talked to the super." Peter picks out a report he wrote up himself and printed. A surge of warmth and pride in his two agents fills him. They're ready to follow him on his say-so and nothing more. He'll have to be careful of them and not take advantage, not take this into obsession territory and hurt their careers. "Caffrey's apartment was burgled twice in the last month. Last time, day before his regular trip north to Danbury." He frowns. "I want to talk to him again. There was something off." 

"We could handle that, boss," Diana volunteers.

"Do that, would you?" 

"Gets me out of the office." Her smile teases.

He tries not to let her know, but Diana's the best probationary agent Peter's ever worked with except Jones. He's going to fight to keep her with the unit. It's going to be a fight too: Counter-terrorism down in DC is already sniffing around. He has to tussle with the higher ups to keep Jones around too, but Jones wants to stay in New York so that helps. So does Hughes, who has a career's worth of pull to call on when Peter's isn't enough.

"Meantime, let's walk through it," he says. "Caffrey's apartment is burgled twice." 

Jones picked up another report. "Guy loses his job. Ouch." 

"And then it gets better," Peter finishes. "Two weeks ago, he heads up to Danbury to see Moreau looking like someone worked him over professionally. According to a guard there, one of his fingers was broken." 

"Double ouch," Diana comments. "Does he gamble?" 

Jones chuckles. "Well, he dated Moreau." 

"You're thinking debt collectors?" Peter asks Diana.

It might fit the scenario. The burglaries could have been faked for insurance purposes. Except Caffrey didn't even have renter's insurance. If he needed money though, he might have gone to Kate hoping she'd give him the location of one of her caches. Canny Kate wouldn't have, though; Peter's sure of that. He can't dismiss the theory, but he doesn't buy it either.

Diana lifts her shoulders, silently saying it had to be posited, but she's not enamored of the idea either.

Peter pulls out another report he wrote. "He had a gallery showing coming up. It was canceled." 

"Something stinks," Jones says. "Too much, too fast." 

"I agree." 

"If you stop looking at it being about Moreau," Diana speculates, "then her murder fits into a different pattern." 

"Caffrey's life going to hell. Burgled, fired, beat up, no showing, girlfriend killed," Jones recites. "Bet there was more too. Caffrey's the target." 

"So, whose Wheaties did he piss in?" 

Peter looks at the two agents with badly hidden pride. They're both so smart. "That's the sixty-four thousand dollar question, isn't it?" The question he wants to answer, because someone outsmarted Kate. Someone got ahead of her. That's all kinds of impressive and maybe Peter feels a little spike of something ‒ envy, jealousy, possessiveness, protectiveness ‒ because for a while he was the only one who managed to outwit Kate. The only one who figured her out, who saw through her glamour, who liked the real woman inside, who was rooting for her and Caffrey to make it once she got out. He spent years living vicariously through Kate and Caffrey, played a bigger part in their lives than he did in Elizabeth's, and though he's put the case behind him, it's harder to let go of the feeling of ownership than he wants to admit. It's his case, damn it. He feels responsible for Kate and for Caffrey too.

He badly wants to find who had to the gall to interfere in their lives.

A Bureau shrink would have a field day with _that_. 

"Re-interview the super, the boss, and any friends we can find?" Jones says.

Peter smiles at him. "To start with." 

Jones trades a look with Diana, but shrugs his assent. "You know, if Caffrey's the target, he may just be laying low," he says, "but if it really was Moreau ‒ " 

"He's probably dead," Diana finishes. "Once they got her out where she was vulnerable, he stopped being useful." 

Peter shakes his head. They're right, but he's not ready to believe it. Seeing Kate Moreau dead was bad enough, he can't accept that Caffrey's body is out there somewhere, his smile and style and all that talent snuffed out. No. He's only spoken to Caffrey twice, but twice is enough. Peter spent too long surveilling him, waiting like a lion at the waterhole to catch Kate, not to feel like he knows Caffrey and, what he knows, he's always liked. It took an effort not to keep an eye on Caffrey after Kate's sentencing. Now Peter wishes he had. He shuffles out a copy of the picture Kate left in her cell. Christ, that sweet smile must have helped Kate through all the long, lonely nights in Danbury.

If Caffrey's dead, Peter's going to find out why and who did it and put them away forever.

"Yeah. Either way, we nail the bastard behind this, okay?" If he sounds more forceful about this than is strictly professional, Peter doesn't care. Kate was his and, by association, so is Caffrey.

"Okay, boss," Diana and Jones chorus with another shared glance.

What's Past Was Prologue

The team takes photographs of everything in the apartment when they go in to place the bug. Peter goes through them on his laptop, sitting at his kitchen table, pretending the house isn't too quiet, too empty. El isn't upstairs in bed already and he feels the difference in the air that never stirs to anything except his own motion.

He has to move out of the house or he's going to go insane missing her. It took him a week to really believe she'd left, but he still feels her all around him because they made the house their home together. Christ, he was a fool, a worse fool than if he'd fallen for another woman. He sees it now: he abandoned El in place and expected her to always be waiting, whenever he felt like paying attention to their marriage again.

He's tried calling her at work. She screens his calls. He doesn't think playing stalker would be so funny when she's divorcing him as it was when he first wanted to ask her out. The single most horrible outcome he can imagine is getting a reprimand and a suspension, and being pulled off the Moreau case after screwing his marriage up because of it.

There's nothing left except catching Kate.

Maybe he can put his life back together afterward. He can't do anything until the case is closed, though. Peter's certain of that on a gut level.

Caffrey is the key. Everyone misses that. Caffrey's Kate's Achilles' heel, her soft spot, her mistletoe. Kate won't or can't give him up.

Find Caffrey, find Kate.

He's found Neal Caffrey, right back in New York, working a straight job and keeping a suspiciously low profile. Getting the warrant to search and bug Caffrey's apartment cost Peter a favor he doubts he'll enjoy paying off, but it's worth it. His team went through Caffrey's place the day before and now he has photographs to go with the dry reports and audio surveillance transcripts.

Peter's transfixed, so much so he forgets about El's absence.

Even on a poor laptop screen, the paintings are breathtaking. Peter feels a little stupid. He never put together that the sketchbooks and half-finished paintings abandoned on the occasions he or someone else in law enforcement draw too close to one of Kate's boltholes or the hand drawn cards she leaves for him ‒ too often in his motel room or car or his baggage ‒ aren't her work. They're Caffrey's.

God, Caffrey's good; it's almost a slap in the face. Kate was stealing Rembrandts and sleeping with a young Da Vinci. How in hell has he missed this? Peter knows though: it's Caffrey's almost too handsome looks. Just like everyone else, all Peter has let himself see is eye candy, Kate's boy toy, someone who fills out a tux and looks the way Kate needs an escort to look. He's been stupid.

Some things make more sense now. Kate Moreau wouldn't keep anyone around just for his looks, not even someone madly in love with her. She can find a man the way a drunk can find a drink, but Caffrey's a genius, someone not so easy to replace. Caffrey's got the brains and the talent to go with his looks. He's the one responsible for the frankly amazing forgeries she's used in some of her cons and thefts, not that Peter will ever prove it. But it isn't even that Caffrey is an asset to Kate's lifestyle. No, it's more.

Peter knows Kate inside and out, her favorite coffee, her ring size, her dislike of asparagus. He understands abruptly: Caffrey's part of Kate's cache, one more rare and amazing acquisition. The old cliché of stealing a heart is nothing but the truth when it comes to Kate and Caffrey.

Except Caffrey isn't with her now. Peter narrows his eyes. Maybe it isn't necessary to know to make the case, but he can't help wondering why. He knows Kate, though. She isn't willing to let anything go. She's going to keep on looking for Caffrey until she has her prize back. If this is part of some long con, she's still going to contact Caffrey sooner or later.

He opens another window, this one with a surveillance shot of Caffrey on the front steps of his apartment building, dressed for work, warily surveying the street. They need to keep the surveillance light and at a distance or he'll make them, even if he is looking for Kate instead.

"Why did you leave her, kid?" Peter asks in the silence of his mostly dark kitchen.

The photograph offers no answers.

Maybe Caffrey got sick of life on the run after three years of flitting back and forth from Europe to North America with stops in Brazil and Argentina, Hong Kong, and the Middle East. It doesn't seem likely.

"What did Kate finally do?" 

Did she hurt him? Stupid question. As far as Peter's pieced together, Kate's hurt Caffrey more than once. Could someone have threatened Caffrey enough to make him run all the way back to New York? 

Why hide from Kate? 

A shiver hits Peter. There are only a few things he can imagine would send a man running from the woman he loves. Drugs, human trafficking, or murder spring to mind. None of them are anything Peter ever thought Kate would stoop to doing. If she did though, if she did... He needs to stop her. Cons and theft are one thing, active harm is another. But he hasn't heard even a whisper of such things about Kate.

He knows one thing, though: Kate doesn't let go easily. She'll be looking for Caffrey, whether to win him back or shut him up.

Peter rubs the frown lines deepening between his brows. It feels warped to do this, but he's going to help Kate Moreau find Caffrey. When she does, he's going to arrest her and send her to prison. It's the least he can do after all the pain he has put El through because this case. He feels a badly for Caffrey, but he has to do it.

Hope Leaves a Scar

Peter's late and Elizabeth isn't surprised, not after he canceled their regular lunch date. No matter how he tries, he still gets caught up in cases. Sometimes he has to work. Even in White Collar, sometimes lives or at least livelihoods depend on him.

She's perfectly content to wait. Unlike many women, she's not embarrassed to dine alone or worried if anyone thinks she's been stood up. She looks good, she feels good, her meal will be delicious even if she eats it alone. A little quiet time for herself over a meal she didn't cook is well worth appreciating however it occurs.

The glass of white wine she ordered while waiting has a lovely taste. Crisp and delicate as spring with a scent reminiscent of pears. She'll ask the waiter to recommend what would go well with another glass and take a taxi home.

Her thoughts are on a reception Premier Events is coordinating. The invitations will need to be made out by hand; the client wants the personal touch. The client wants calligraphy too. Elizabeth puts her wine glass down and spins a silver salad fork in her fingers. She's going to have hand cramps before she's finished with those invitations. Yvonne is a perfect assistant and her other workers all more than competent, but none of them can do calligraphy of the quality necessary for this.

Peter arrives less apologetic than distracted, confirming Elizabeth's suspicion that he's been caught up in a case. He looks energized and exhausted at once, a state she remembers him inhabiting well. She smiles despite herself as the waiter shows Peter his seat opposite her and Peter pauses to kiss her cheek before taking it. He smells faintly of cologne and his face is smooth; he shaved before showing up, one of those little things Peter's always done that she loves.

"I know I'm late." 

Her watch shows it's only been twenty minutes. "Enough to notice, but you could still chalk it up to traffic," she agrees.

"From the Federal Building." Peter's voice is dry as a good sherry as he mocks the idea he could get away with lying to her.

"Maybe you were somewhere else?" Elizabeth teases. His smile warms her insides. Despite all her doubts ‒ along with her sister's and her parents' ‒ she's beginning to believe they can try again. It was never his love for her she doubted after all. Of course, Peter's not perfect, but what man is? For the last three years, Peter has tried everything to win her back except offering to quit the Bureau, which isn't something Elizabeth would ever want him to do.

"NYPD are not cooperating," Peter admits.

Elizabeth hesitates but finds herself asking, "You've got an investigation that involves the police department?" 

Peter's face does something strange. Elizabeth reads alarm and a hint of shame in the flickering emotions that cross it. He opens his mouth to answer twice and says nothing each time. Her eyebrows go up, because Peter doesn't waffle much and almost never with her. He wants to hide something, she realizes.

Before she can prompt him for an answer, Peter's phone sounds. "I've got take this," he says.

"I know." 

Elizabeth sips her wine and glances through the menu the waiter discreetly provided when Peter arrived. She tries not to listen to Peter's side of the conversation but inevitably hears things. Truthfully, curiosity does play into it. Deciding what to order does not compare to the White Collar division's cases when it comes to interesting her.

"Any leads on Caffrey at all?" Peter demands.

The name sounds familiar to Elizabeth. She knows it, though not so well as the one she remembers linked to it. The wine no longer tastes so fine and her appetite disappears under a wave of bitter anger. Damn Peter. Caffrey was the beautiful artist, Kate Moreau's lover, the one Peter used to trap her. Damn him. Damn them both.

Did a brown-out just hit? The dining room, aglitter with crystal and china and silver, dims. Candles flickering out would explain it, but in truth the lights are still as bright. It's all in her head. Elizabeth gulps down the last of the wine and sets the empty glass down jerkily, the base clinking against a butter knife's blade. The small sound draws Peter's attention from his phone call. He finishes quickly, meeting Elizabeth's stony gaze while he speaks, and she focuses on the blue glow from the phone's screen that reflects off his jawline until he puts it away.

"You're chasing her again," Elizabeth states.

"No." 

"Don't lie, Peter. You are very bad at it." 

"I'm not chasing Kate Moreau." 

Ignoring the sinking feeling in under her heart for the moment, Elizabeth demands, "Tell me." 

"She escaped yesterday." 

"They want you on the case." 

"NYPD want me off the case, actually," Peter replies, an irony Elizabeth can't parse yet. "I found her. She's dead, El." 

How horrible that even that isn't enough, Elizabeth thinks. It isn't enough to make her forgive. It isn't enough to make Peter give up. Nothing will ever be.

"I found her in Caffrey's apartment. Someone shot her. Caffrey's gone. NYPD thinks he did it. El, he didn't. I know he didn't." 

Despair doesn't bubble. It seeps, it's a taint that contaminates and spreads, unseen, until everything that seems fine is really poisoned under the surface.

"I should back off, but I know ‒ I know this guy. He's not a killer. He's smart and talented and he visited her every week, El, every week without fail. Then he disappears. No. I don't buy it. That's why she broke out and I'm afraid that if he's not on the run, then whoever killed Kate has him." 

Obsession's a stranger thing than depression. Stranger than passion. It's a fire that can burn without fuel. Elizabeth has watched it catch hold of Peter before. It seems so unfair she has to see it again. All of it, all the force and brilliance and determination that make Peter who he is, the very things Elizabeth loves about him, are shifting before her eyes, but not back to her.

Peter talks about Caffrey for the next ten minutes, repeating or testing new arguments for Caffrey's innocence, along with worry that he's in danger. It's a mystery too and Peter loves a mystery.

The hurt's almost deeper than when she left him.

All Peter can think of now is Neal Caffrey.

She expects Peter will find the artist. He caught Kate eventually. She almost hopes he fails, though. Almost hopes Caffrey's dead, but that shames her, so she hopes instead that he makes a fool of Peter. The way she feels like she's the fool here.

Peter used to tell her about the things Kate was suspected of doing; the men she seduced or fooled or outright stole from and Elizabeth wonders detachedly if Kate's infidelities hurt Caffrey the way Peter's obsession did her. It's funny, but Kate Moreau never tried to seduce Peter, not that there aren't so many other ways a man can betray a marriage. Sex is not everything, even between lovers. She feels something like sympathy for Caffrey, reflecting on that. This pain, her pain, is in no way his fault. She bites her lower lip, sinking her teeth in hard and tasting her lipstick, and doesn't let any of the things she's feeling spill out. No, not yet, not until she's home where no one can see.

Her mind races.

She remembers the surveillance photos of Caffrey. Hard not to remember a face that classic. Elizabeth's job and her own taste brings her in contact with the finest things and the most beautiful people in New York. Caffrey could out shine all of it on the surface.

Peter could never fall in love with Kate Moreau, Elizabeth acknowledges, even though Kate was so many of the things Peter admires. Kate was smart and beautiful, but she was still on the wrong side of the law Peter reveres. Elizabeth has always been able to read when Peter was attracted to someone, even when he doesn't know it yet, and though she's never seen Peter and Caffrey together, she thinks he has all the attributes to spark Peter into another obsession. And Caffrey isn't a criminal...

She listens as Peter talks about Caffrey's art and it's clear as glass that he's attracted by Caffrey's talent.

Funny how she can hear it in Peter's voice, in his expression, in the language of his body now, and see transparently what he doesn't know it yet himself. She knows him so well, but she can never hold him. She loved Peter too easily, he never needed to outsmart her to have her, never presented him with a mystery, never flirted with danger or needed him to save her. She never saw that that's what he wants: someone basically unattainable on some level. Kate was a criminal; Peter could never have her. Caffrey's not a criminal, but he's an artist, and if he's as good as Peter says, that will always hold a place in him that Peter can't touch. She can see it now, that essential male want for what can't be grasped. Peter will repeat himself, and his mistakes, and for the last three years, she's been doing the same. Peter will always be a good man, but all the courting, all the love, it's all been because _she left him_. This is the worst day she's had in years.

Of course, the attraction may be moot. Elizabeth has no idea if Caffrey is bisexual. It really doesn't matter if Caffrey would accept or reject Peter's interest though, not to her and Peter's relationship. The one she sees now she should have cut off three years ago. She's not going to go through this again.

Love doesn't conquer all. Love just makes failing hurt more.

"Peter," she interrupts him. "I'm going home now." 

She drops enough money from her purse on the table to cover the cost of her wine, a tip, and anything Peter may want to order.

"What?" 

"I don't think we'll do this again. It's not working. Nothing's different." 

"I thought ‒ " He's bewildered. The shock will wear off and he'll get a little angry, but Elizabeth steels her heart and straightens her spine. One of them has to face reality. They've both been spinning their wheels.

"Please don't call me for a while." She manages an ironic smile. He won't. Once Peter gets the bit between his teeth, little can stop him. He'll fall so deep into this case he won't even remember her most of the time. "I need some time away from you." 

"Is this because I was talking about Caffrey?" 

"Yes and no." 

"He's in trouble, El. Am I supposed to ignore that?" 

_Yes_ , she thinks, _he's nothing to you or me_. But Peter wouldn't be the good man he is if he thought that way.

"No," she tells him gently. "You're supposed to do what you do best. That just doesn't include being married or with me anymore." 

No More Second Chances

Three months of watching and everyone on the case is burned out and bored. Peter's brainstorm is looking more like a fizzling drizzle. The agents in the surveillance van lean on their elbows in front of the monitors and fight to keep heavy-lidded eyes open. The summer sun turns the inside of the van into an oven, cooking the odors of sweat, cologne, and everyones' lunches into their clothes, their skin, and the equipment. Peter's just as guilty as any of the junior agents; he's zoned out, just waiting out his shift since it's his op. Even the bug in Caffrey's apartment fails to offer anything interesting. He's the quietest guy most of them have ever listened in on. Sometimes he sings while he's cleaning, but he doesn't talk to himself, and his phone calls tend to revolve around ordering take-out and quick work-related conversations. Paulson is the only one who has even heard him curse; one morning he burnt himself on a hot pan and dropped it on his toe.

Caffrey curses in Russian, German, French and Spanish, along with good old Anglo-Saxon, according to the translators who listened to the recording. It's impressive, but it's been weeks since he did anything that interesting. He isn't even limping any longer.

The bug isn't placed particularly advantageously. They're all used to spats of static along with the long stretches of near silence when Caffrey's painting. Caffrey plays a lot of jazz and classic Rat Pack songs. It could be worse, listening to Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald beats ear-splitting death metal, after all. If he has a girlfriend besides Kate, or friends at all, Caffrey keeps them away from his apartment. On the whole, watching and listening to him isn't the worst assignment in the FBI, but it's boring.

It would be a break in routine to go into the apartment again. He half wants to, though it's a risk they can't take. Peter wishes he could just stand inside though and absorb the feel of the space, soak in what it could tell him about Caffrey. He wants to see what Caffrey's painting now, with his own eyes, not a color-skewed picture on a pixilated laptop screen. It's frustration, of course, rasping away his patience until he's tempted to spook Caffrey just to see where he runs.

Hell, Peter's tempted more and more to just walk up to Caffrey and ask him where the hell Kate is and why he's hiding from her, since it's become clear over the last month that's exactly what Caffrey's doing.

Paulson opens a can of soda with a _shish-snap_ and gulps some down. She gestures to the cooler holding more but Peter shakes his head. What goes in must go out and the convenience store a block over is going to charge the Bureau rent on the washroom there soon.

It would be a hell of thing if they blew the surveillance because someone had to take a piss. It would be just like Kate to catch them out that way too. Peter imagines walking into the washroom and finding a note from her on the mirror over the sink. He almost chuckles, picturing the laughter that would gleam in Kate's eyes.

Idly, Peter wonders if Kate loses her masks when she and Caffrey make love. Does Caffrey get to see the real her behind those big blue eyes? A flash of what Caffrey must look like hits him and Peter's breath hitches.

He shifts uncomfortably in his seat, masking his body's reaction to that thought by peeling his sweat-sticky clothes loose from his skin. Where the hell did that come from? He's always been aware of how beautiful Kate is, but he's never wanted her before. Peter grimaces at himself. It isn't Kate, he realizes, it's the idea of her and Caffrey together.

Damn. It's just because he hasn't been with anyone since Elizabeth left him, he tells himself.

The rustle of someone moving around, then the radio and the plaintive lament of But Not For Me playing doesn't stir any of them out of their lethargy.

Not until the apartment door opens again, the radio is switched off, and they hear Kate Moreau's voice.

_"I've missed you so much, Neal."_

Peter jolts out of his half-doze and glares at the other two agents who somehow missed seeing Kate Moreau make her way into Caffrey's apartment. Without Judge Walters' warrant for the bug in the apartment, they still wouldn't know she's there.

"Get back up here, no sirens, unmarked cars, and cover every damn exit on this place," Peter orders. He's not letting her get away after three months watching, after three damn years running her down. "Send someone up to the roof too." 

Kate's like a cat, she runs up.

The bug gives them Caffrey's voice.

_"Kate."_

The sounds that come next can only be one thing, bodies pressed to each other and a passionate kiss. Peter imagines them embracing, the way he saw them once on a rainy Parisian street, before Kate caught his reflection in a patisserie window, grabbed Caffrey's hand, and ran away, laughing.

_"You shouldn't have come here."_

"I had to." 

"You lied to me." Caffrey's voice is so quiet. There isn't even any anger there, just a crack of sorrow. _"You used me."_

"Neal. I love you." 

"Until the next con." 

"No more cons. I'm done. We can be together now." 

Paulson rolls her eyes, but Peter can see it's getting to her too. Paulson's another romantic; two divorces and she still believes in true love. Peter does too, and Kate sounds sincere, but Kate always sounds sincere, she's a con. Peter hopes Caffrey doesn't fall for it. Wishes he could warn Caffrey not to believe her. Stay cynical, kid, he wants to say.

_"Why should I believe you?"_ Caffrey's moving around the apartment, maybe pacing, and there's a rattle from the Venetian blinds. _"Why come back now? What do you want?"_

"I want you to come with me." 

"I have a life here." 

"We can have a life together." It must not be enough. Caffrey doesn't answer and Kate begins to plead. _"I know I hurt you. I lied about so many things... "_

"So what's changed?" 

Peter hesitates, because he wants to hear it too. What happened? What finally made Neal Caffrey run away from Kate Moreau, when every other time she left him? Did she think he'd always be faithful? What made him leave, what made her come to him? What's different this time? Is anything? 

_"Me."_

"Kate ‒ " 

"I love you, Neal. I never lied about that. I'll never lie to you again." 

Peter checks his Glock, making sure he can draw it smoothly from his shoulder holster and not hang up on the vest. Sweat runs down the center of his back. It's not all the smothering heat. It's excitement. Adrenaline. In a minute he's going to win.

After three years, he's going to beat Kate Moreau. Kate the Great, the Queen of Cons. It's exhilarating.

"Anyone fucks this up and I will make sure you spend the rest of your careers interviewing alien abduction freaks in Roswell," he tells his team.

"We got it, boss," Jones, his youngest agent, says with a flash of teeth.

"Let's go." 

Six floors up and he's trying not to pant. He lets Jones kick in the door.

Kate and Caffrey are silhouetted, two figures so close they're one, against the apartment's windows ‒ those windows are the reasons Caffrey chose it, there's an easel set up to take advantage of the light ‒ wrapped in each other. She's wearing a deep red dress and Caffrey's in a suit from work, the dark color framing her. They almost glow, too beautiful to be real: Caffrey with his long artist's fingers framing Kate's face and Kate with one hand curled round Caffrey's shoulder and the other tangled in his hair. They're like a painting themselves.

They both flinch as Peter and his team pour into the room, but they don't move, cleaving tighter, holding their last kiss until Jones pulls Caffrey away from her and Paulson turns Kate to face Peter.

"Agent Burke," Kate says. A toss of her head settles her long hair over her shoulder and she smiles at him, rueful and defiant. "I'd offer you a kiss too, if you weren't a married man." 

"Katherine Moreau," Peter says as he closes the cuffs around her wrists, close enough he can smell her perfume, the same perfume she left on a negligée she hid in his suitcase once, "you are under arrest." The rest of the Miranda warning almost recites itself.

She leans into him and whispers, "I hope you didn't forget your anniversary again for this." 

He didn't have anyone to celebrate it with this year and abruptly Peter's elation is all gone, replaced with weariness and anger.

"Pat, get her out of here," he orders.

Kate looks surprised for a microsecond, then sways away under Paulson's guidance, like she's a date on her arm not a suspect under arrest. She ruins the effect at the door when she drags her feet and half-turns, breaking the con's cardinal rule: looking back. Peter knows she doesn't see him, just Caffrey. He thinks, shocked, she does love him.

Caffrey is standing, his arms wrapped around himself, watching as Kate's led away, still limned by the sunset. His eyes are the only color in his face, electric and intent, giving away the tension he's otherwise reigning in. The effort not to react to what's happened thrums off him. Jones hovers cautiously beside him, ready to stop Caffrey if necessary.

"Kate," Caffrey calls abruptly, arms loosening, and it looks like giving up, "I love you too." 

And She Is Not With Me

"I found a new place yesterday," Neal tells Mozzie in the dragging silence after he can't cry anymore. Kate's dead, Kate's dead, Kate's dead. Ask not for whom the bell tolls, you don't want to know, and, hey, it's New York, scoring a great place is always a conversational topic. Kate's dead, he has a new apartment, one of these things is not like the other. He clutches at his elbows and rocks himself like that will keep him from flying apart in a thousand shattered pieces.

"You know you can stay as long as you need, mon frère." 

Neal shakes his head like he can shake away the truth. Thinking is bad. He longs to retreat into comforting emptiness.

Mozzie's the best friend Neal's ever had. He only knows him because of Kate, of course, and Kate's dead. This is all a replay of what happened when Kate left him the first time. Only Kate's dead, and it's not the same at all, no one broke his fingers, no one took his paintings, no one died before. No one died until Barcelona. It's not even the same place Mozzie put him up then. This is an actual apartment; the first time Neal ended up relying on Mozzie's generosity, when Kate betrayed them both, it was a storage unit.

The flooring between his feet is darker than everywhere else. He spilled the coffee Mozzie made. The smell is suddenly horrible. He feels dehydrated, a husk of himself. The tape holding the splint on his finger is dirty gray at the edges and peeling away. Neal picks at it with his good hand, peeling it up and smoothing it back into place. Now it won't stick. He wants to unstick the last week of his life.

"I see you found some clothes." 

"I did." 

An entire walk-in room full of elegantly tailored suits and anything else he could imagine. Neal suspects if he thinks of something he wants and accidentally mentions it where June can hear, it will soon show up. The way she looks at him would be creepy if there was a sexual component, but there isn't, and she isn't. She sent a bag of things with him, along with keys to the front and back doors, the loft and the studio, so he could move in whenever he wants. He realizes he came back to Mozzie's and conked out on the couch without telling him about her. He was just so tired and relieved and now it means nothing. Maybe nothing will ever again. He can't think past the awful pulse of Kate's dead, Kate's dead, Kate's dead.

He makes himself say something and only hears it after. "June Ellington." 

Mozzie rolls with the seeming non sequitur. "Byron Ellington's wife? They say she's got two fortunes in that mansion of hers: everything he painted and everything he bought." 

"Guess so," Neal agrees blankly. He can't care, though the day before he'd been entranced by the gathered beauty on June's walls and scattered through her Riverside mansion. Just imagining it all would have turned Kate on, made her eyes bright with want.

He didn't know it then, that Kate's dead. Kate's never going to con again. Never lift another painting. Never pull Neal into bed after he's created a forgery for her and let him paint her skin with his stained fingers. Never laugh. Never brush his hair out of his eyes.

Kate. 

"You met her?" 

June. June. Mozzie's talking about June. Not Kate. Kate's dead. Neal doesn't need to remind himself, but he can't stop it, it's all he can think.

"Yeah. Yesterday." If the newspaper article is accurate, Neal was charming and being charmed by the famous painter's widow at a thrift store while someone killed the woman he loves. The food he ate earlier threatens to rise up. He concentrates on breathing in and out slowly, thinking of nothing else but filling and emptying his lungs. His eyes are so dry they burn.

Kate was dying and he was sipping coffee with June. Why didn't he know? How could Kate be dead without Neal knowing? His whole body trembles. "I ‒ " He doesn't remember what else he meant to say.

"Neal." 

He jerks his gaze up and tries to figure out what Mozzie has been saying. He hasn't heard any of it, isn't sure how much time just disappeared from his experience. Agony and denial are a vortex in his head, sucking in everything else, a roar of pain drowning out everything else. Thought can only gasp and then is pulled under again.

Mozzie's arm is around his shoulders. He doesn't know when Mozzie pulled him in so close. He can't think, he just hurts, a million wishes and if-onlies flying through his brain, careening off each other. What if he'd told Kate on that last visit? What if he hadn't sworn he wouldn't be back, what if he hadn't said good-bye when she wouldn't tell him what Fowler wanted from her? What ‒ 

"Neal," Mozzie says again and shakes him a little, still holding on as he does so, gentle yet firm, "will she give you an alibi? June? 'Cause the filthy cops are going to try to screw you over and pin Kate's murder on you." 

Should he care? Kate's dead. They can lock him away. They can put him down. What does it matter? Everything's over. Neal almost says as much, but the words dry up in his mouth, caught like dry tinder as a flicker of anger catches inside him. If he goes down for Kate's murder, the bastard who did it will get to walk away without paying.

Kate's dead and Neal wants the man responsible to suffer for that, for the life he cut off and the light that snuffed out inside Neal.

Hollow, he repeats the words echoing through his brain. "Kate's dead." They'll never slow dance by candlelight again or slurp cereal at the same breakfast table, both with bedhead, surly and mostly silent because neither of them are morning people.

"I know," Mozzie murmurs to him. "I know." 

He's been repeating it over and over without even knowing it. He didn't think he could cry anymore, but the words pull more tears from him. Everything inside Neal is tearing loose. He's too hot and shuddering with cold at the same time. If he tried to stand, his knees wouldn't hold him up. The flash of anger that gave him a moment of strength is gone like smoke.

Mozzie awkwardly pats at his back and swears and maps out plans to find the man who took Kate from Neal and destroy him. "She'd want revenge," Mozzie finishes matter-of-factly.

"I want him in jail," Neal declares, surprising himself along with Mozzie. He's told Mozzie all about Fowler and the badge he's flashing around town. "No killing. I want him arrested." 

"Death's too easy," Mozzie agrees. "I can see the irony too. You want to use the Man to get him. That's inspired, especially since neither of us has enough money to hire a hit. The problem is finding a cop who isn't part of the plot ‒ " 

"Agent Burke." The name spills out without benefit of thought. Burke's the only one Neal can trust. He knows that. Burke with his pretty wife and perfect life will understand what Neal's lost. Burke knows how amazing Kate is. Was. Neal gulps in air so hard he's nearly hyperventilating.

Mozzie sits back and stares at Neal in shock. "The Suit? The one who put Kate away?" 

"Yeah." Neal scrubs the wet tracks from his cheeks with the heels of his hands, blinking to clear his eyes. Kate's still dead. He still wonders how he's breathing. It shouldn't be possible. If he hadn't left Kate in Barcelona... They could've gone anywhere, done anything. If only Neal had the nerve to stick with her then, she wouldn't have needed to find him, and Burke would have never caught her. They could be drinking coffee at that little café in Paris, the one Kate loved. He'll never wake Kate to the smell of coffee again. It should be impossible.

He says, "He's good." 

Kate didn't believe anyone was really good, but she admitted Burke might be the real thing.

Some cops get frustrated and cut corners. They decide they know a criminal is guilty and if they can't find the evidence to prove it, they'll create it. Not Burke. No dirty tricks for Peter Burke; Kate swore he watched her walk out of another agent's frame job once without trying to stop her.

When he caught Kate, it was fair and square.

Burke doesn't cheat on his wife or his taxes, and he won't be bought. He's smart, but that's not why Neal thinks of him. It's because Kate always sounded a little wistful about Peter Burke, like he stood for something she would have liked to believe in. Burke's clean.

Threats won't scare him off.

Burke's honest as almost no one Neal knows is. He keeps his word. Normal, boring, straight as a ruler according to Kate. Burke has the house, the dog, a career he's good at and a beautiful wife. Neal sort of envies him.

Peter Burke's the kind of guy you could trust.

He never had the guts to say that to Kate though, even while they were spinning pie in the sky plans to each other through prison Plexiglas.

He feels sick, remembering, wanting to have those moments back. He wants so much and it's all gone. Kate's gone and he'll never know what she really felt.

Kate never cared for anything she could have without taking it away from someone else. She swore she'd change. She promised. They were going to go to San Francisco. Every week they talked about it. They'd get one of those Victorian houses, but not one jam-packed in a row with too many others. There would be a front yard, with a picket fence, and a backyard. He'd buy a lawnmower and cut the grass and paint back there sometimes. They were going to get a dog. Kate wanted a German Shepherd; Neal wanted a Golden Retriever. He's a fool: it was never going to happen, but he wouldn't have cared, as long as he had Kate.

"You think he'll help?" 

Burke will help, because he's a decent man, and because Kate got to him too. Neal's sure of it. He'll understand that there's never going to be a little girl with Kate's laugh and it's so wrong Neal can't breathe. He curls his hands into fists so tight the tendons twang.

"Yeah, he will, Moz." He has to. Someone has to, because Neal doesn't know how. He paints pictures and he's utterly useless to Kate now. Another sob catches in his throat. He wants Kate back. Tears are plopping on the floor again. He doesn't even try to stop them.

"Then how are you going to get in contact with him without getting busted by some crooked agent working with him?" 

Fowler. That bastard. The thing is: Fowler scares Neal. He has no idea how to deal with him. That's why he needs Burke.

Neal covers his eyes and shakes. He doesn't know. He'll never brush Kate's hair for her again. She'll never rub his shoulders after he's spent the night painting. They'll never go back to that private beach in Spain where they sunbathed nude and she laughed at where he burned. His life is an expanse of nevers and lost chances stretching in front of him, with no path or goal without Kate.

He'll never slide a ring onto her finger. He never asked her. All the times they talked about what they'd do once she was free and Neal never asked her. He was always too afraid of how she'd answer.

"Neal ‒ " 

"I don't know," he says.

He'll never know. He's a man waking up to find his handful of fairy gold is nothing but withered leaves. 

~*~

Diana hands Peter the file solemnly and he knows she's already aware of the contents. She's conscientious; she probably talked to the M.E. as well as obtaining a copy of the autopsy results.

He balances the manila folder between his fingers. "What's in here?" 

"Cause of death GSW to the head," Diana replies.

"And?" 

Diana doesn't fidget. That doesn't mean nothing gets to her, but she has a hard-won poise that's matched by a core of inner strength. She meets Peter's eyes directly.

"Dr. Warner found burns and ligature marks on her wrists and ankles, bruising commensurate with being tied to a straight chair, and an injection site on her right arm." 

"Kate was right-handed." 

Diana nods. "Blood work came back positive for sodium pentathol." She straightens her shoulders. "She didn't shoot up while she was tied to a chair getting punched in the stomach. Someone interrogated her." Diana chooses her words precisely. Her reports are always excellent, clear and concise recreations of events, facts presented and conclusions drawn, with no confusion allowed. She says 'interrogate' because it's important to the case: pain is a torturer's purpose but an interrogator's tool. There's a reason behind Kate's murder beyond just killing her.

In fact, Peter's coming to believe Kate's murder is just a footnote to what the killer wants.

Peter opens the file and goes through it, picking out the details that support the M.E.'s summary to Diana. The burns were made with cigarettes, the bruises with fists, the marks on her ankles and wrists from some kind of industrial strength twine. The twine stands out to him. He has the forensic report on the apartment memorized already. No twine was found there. He knows every horrible thing done to Kate and there's a part of him that would like to see whoever is responsible suffer exactly the same pain. He likes to think he would be as appalled if the victim had been a man ‒ he would ‒ but the idea of hurting a woman, any woman, goes against everything he believes in.

"Whoever did it cleaned her up before they left her there." 

"That's what Warner thinks." 

A small curl of relief opens inside when he reads Warner's conclusion that there was no sexual component to Kate's death. The violence is disgusting enough as it is. It's a small thing, but Peter hates the thought of her being molested too. The twine, the painting, the torture, all of it was premeditated, and not an attack of opportunity. The absence of an assault confirms Peter's conviction that whoever killed her planned it from the beginning.

Peter's no profiler, but he can put a few things together. Whoever killed Kate knew her well and predicted exactly where she would go when she escaped. It points to someone manipulating her into doing it too, so they could get at her. They also knew how to clean up a crime scene: don't bother trying to hide what it is, just remove everything useful to an investigation.

Yet, in a barren apartment with no furniture except a straight chair, the killer didn't bother policing his brass.

"Think they got what they wanted?" he asks.

"Either that or they got all she knew." 

He nods because that's the same read on the case he has. "Ballistics came back too." That file is thin. The make and caliber of the bullet can only tell them so much until they can match it to the weapon used to fire it. What it does say, along with that spent cartridge, isn't anything Peter likes. ".40 S&W." 

The same caliber is loaded in Peter's Glock. Smith and Wesson developed it for the FBI.

Diana sums up his own feelings about that. "Sonovabitch." 

A Day Later Than Yesterday

A single guilty finding out of dozens of charges leaves Peter with a bad taste in his mouth.

Kate bats her big blue eyes and speaks so softly the judge has to instruct her to speak up so she can be heard and the jury eats it up with a spoon. Once he's given his testimony, Peter makes a point of sitting in on the rest of the trial. Kate's attorney works for Pearson Hardman, so it's a weirdly Harvard crew versus Harvard alums trial, and Pearson's almost as good as she thinks she is, a tall, fierce, dark-eyed woman. She convinces the jury Kate's a victim in all of this, misled and straying from the path of righteousness, but how could a little girl like her do the things the big bad FBI accuses her of? It's ridiculous. He sees one juror nodding along.

The AUSA brings in Sterling Bosch's recovery agent to testify. Pearson makes Sara Ellis bite off every word of her answers and convinces everyone in the courtroom Ellis is an ice-cold, ball-breaking bitch with the ethics of a crocodile.

Ellis is supposed to be their secret weapon. Instead, everyone on the jury now believes she's is as big a law-breaker as Kate's accused of being.

Caffrey wears a good, but not too good, suit and sits behind Kate at the defendant's table every day. Pearson doesn't call him to the stand, but the AUSA does. It's a worse mistake than Ellis. Caffrey charms the jury and dances rings around the prosecutor. No one in the room has any doubt he's in love with Kate and everyone is a sucker for true love.

Peter thinks they're lucky the jury brought in a guilty verdict for the forged bonds. They only got that thanks to Kate's sloppy thumbprint. Every other charge comes back not guilty.

Pearson leans close and surely, certainly, tells Kate this is a better result than they had any right to expect, but Kate is stone-faced.

Behind her, Caffrey is pale and shocked, but rallies fast. He leans as far forward to speak with Kate as he can without ticking off the bailiffs. Peter can't guess what he says, but the words soften Kate's continence before she's led back to holding.

Caffrey's there for Kate's sentencing. Peter notes his presence, while focusing all his attention on Kate. He half-expects her to attempt an escape. The Bureau had surveillance on Caffrey all night, along with a tap on his phone, in case he meant to help her. Caffrey did nothing but get drunk, throw up, and cry, before spending the rest of the night painting. Now he's watching Kate like he'll never see her again and Kate's facing the judge, poised in a royal blue dress, the picture of a woman in control despite the circumstances. She won't make a scene, unless there's a purpose behind it. If she does, Peter's going to be ready to stop her. He has no faith the bailiffs or security guards could catch Kate in a physical chase, not that it would come to that, because Kate would outsmart them first.

He catches her gaze once with a silent admonishment that she won't outsmart or outrun him if she tries anything. Her mouth lifts in an exasperated, amused smile before she turns her attention back to the judge.

He doesn't have a damn thing better to do. The Moreau case is closed with Kate's conviction and his divorce papers are no longer lying on the dining room table at home, waiting for his delinquent signature. He gave in days ago.

"Four years." 

Peter shakes his head in disbelief. Four years? It's barely a slap on the wrist for the charge, but the judge obviously fell for Kate's act too.

Four years is still a long time when you're as young as Kate and Caffrey are, though.

Kate doesn't say anything until the bailiffs urge her to her feet. Her voice is raised to carry, but still not loud. "Neal, I love you." 

Caffrey bolts to his feet and cants forward to watch her until the last second as she disappears into the prison system.

Once Kate's gone, Caffrey crumples into a seat, drops his head into his hands and ignores whatever Pearson tells him before she leaves the courtroom.

Peter stays in his own seat as the courtroom empties until it's just him and Caffrey. He feels hollowed out. What the hell does he do now? Three years of work and what does he really have to show for it? Sure, his star is on the rise at the Bureau. It's likely he'll be put in charge of the New York office's White Collar unit. It doesn't mean much to him. He loves the job, not the titles.

Elizabeth is gone. He signed the papers and sent them back to the lawyers. By now, they've been filed. He's officially divorced. Another marriage falls victim to a law enforcement career; that's the cliché. He misses her so much it nauseates him some nights. He needs to find an apartment too; the house has to be sold, the proceeds split evenly between Elizabeth and himself.

The courtroom lacks windows, so it's lit with overhead fluorescent lights that leach all the normal color tones from everything. It has padded seats instead of plain benches and pressboard furniture rather than age-patinaed wood. It's supposed to be modern and more comfortable. Instead it is soulless and cheap, lacking in the dignity Peter thinks the law should display. Sometimes a door swings open and he can hear voices from the bailiffs' chamber or even the judge's.

The court recorder wanders in, fixes something at her desk, glances at Peter and over to Caffrey, who hasn't lifted his face from his hands, shrugs, and heads out again.

They're almost in the same situation, he and Caffrey, Peter reflects grimly. Only Caffrey didn't orchestrate the destruction of his relationship. Kate isn't leaving him voluntarily, after all, and if he still loves her in four years, they can be together again. The slate will be wiped clean; Kate will be a free woman. There's no reason Caffrey and Kate won't be able to start over and make something good with their lives. If Kate can have a chance at happily ever after, why shouldn't Elizabeth and he? Why not start over? 

Peter sits forward, his elbows on his knees, and shapes those words to himself silently.

Start over.

Kate's case is done. When he leaves this courtroom, he's not going to have anything to do with it or her again. The main reason Elizabeth left him ‒ he isn't fool enough to blame Kate entirely ‒ will be gone.

He still loves Elizabeth. Maybe there's a chance he can woo her into loving him again? 

_They_ could start over.

The idea energizes him as nothing has since the handcuffs closed on Kate's wrists.

Peter pushes to his feet and starts out, only to pause, because Caffrey's still there, the very picture of desolation. The hope sprouting in Peter's heart makes him generous. He walks over and stands next to Caffrey until Caffrey looks up.

"Agent Burke." 

"Caffrey." 

"Happy?" 

Peter ignores the bitterness. "What do you think?" 

Caffrey shakes his head. "I don't know." 

"They'll probably send her to Danbury. It's the closest Bureau of Prisons facility that handles women." 

"Connecticut." 

"Better than Carswell. That's in Texas," Peter tells him.

Caffrey slumps. "I'd move." 

Peter thinks he's telling the truth. "Visit her. Write her. Make sure she's got money on the books. Make sure she doesn't do anything stupid." 

Soft laughter sparks from Caffrey at that last. "Kate? Kate's not stupid." He doesn't look at Peter as he says it.

"No, she's not, but she's done some damned stupid things, and I think you know it." 

Another shrug.

"If you can't stick with her all the way, don't make her think you're going to," Peter adds.

That earns him a flame-hot glare. Caffrey's in it for the long haul. Peter respects that.

"She can do good time, walk out and do something worthwhile. Convince her. Keep her on the straight and narrow. It won't be easy." The things that are worth the effort always take a lot. He's taken Elizabeth for granted, instead of putting in the work their marriage needed. It will be ironic if the con and the artist are better at relationships than the cop and the event planner who live the straight life. "If you love her ‒ " 

"It'll be worth it?" Caffrey's voice is low but earnest. "Kate's everything." 

"Then you'll make it through four years." 

Caffrey nods. "We will." 

Peter holds out his hand and Caffrey takes it, shaking hands without any self-consciousness 

"That's a new one," Peter observes. "I did arrest your girlfriend. Most guys would want to punch me." 

"Who says I don't?" Caffrey is almost smiling, though Peter can see that much of his mind is still caught up in Kate and figuring out what comes next and not on Peter or his part in bringing them to this point. His gaze sharpens and he turns serious in the next breath. "You brought her back to me. Thank you." 

Peter shakes his head at that and laughs. "Okay, then. Good luck." 

"To you too, Agent Burke," Caffrey says, "though I kind of hope I never see you again." 

"Same here." 

Peter leaves the courtroom and Caffrey, along with Kate Moreau, behind, feeling oddly good. In four years, Kate may step out of prison and go right back to her old ways, but it won't be his problem and it won't be him chasing her down.

Like Film Noir

Elizabeth likes getting into the office early, especially before the city stirs into real wakefulness, when the night shifts are ending. She likes the soft gray light before the sun rises, the early promise of a new day, the way she can hear the quiet streets fill up and come to vibrant life. She keeps a sharp eye on her surroundings though, because sometimes the predators are still hungry and lingering in the shadows, even in the best parts of town.

Of course, thanks to Peter, she knows sometimes the predators wear silk suits worth as much as a compact car and do their hunting in the board room.

It's both those things that make her look twice at the young man in the perfect gray suit waiting under the streetlamp closest to her doorway, hat tipped over his eyes, hands in the pockets of his pants. He really shouldn't do that, she reflects, it wrecks the exquisite lines of the classic tailoring. Then she thinks, he's waiting there, and he's waiting for me./p>

She watches him cautiously while she unlocks the door, prepared for him to rush at her or any number of things, her free hand buried in her bag and locked around the Mace can. He doesn't move, though, just slouches against the lamp pole like someone from a noir film, black and white in the predawn light.

Once inside, with the door locked again behind her, she shakes her head at herself with a laugh. Why would some man be waiting for her this early? She tries to schedule all her clients for the afternoon; it lets her get much more done and she hasn't anyone on her schedule for the day. It's all calligraphy and invitations along with backing up Yvonne when she deals with the caterers.

Being divorced from Peter means she doesn't need to worry so much about anyone coming at him through her either. A little bitterly, Elizabeth tells herself there's always a plus side.

The light, syncopated knock on the door behind her makes her jump.

"Mrs. Burke?" a male voice calls from the other side of the door. "My name's Neal Caffrey. May I speak with you?" 

~*~

He really is one of the prettiest men Elizabeth has ever seen. She can't say exactly why she lets him in except curiosity. This is the man Kate Moreau wanted back so bad she went to jail. And Kate is the symbol of why Elizabeth's marriage ended. So she's curious.

From the instant she hears his voice and his name, she isn't in the least scared. The NYPD might think Neal Caffrey killed Kate, but Peter doesn't, and even if Elizabeth didn't still have faith in Peter's instincts, she has it in herself. She knows this man is no killer.

She takes him back to her office and sits him on her couch and only then really gets a look at him with his hat off and a sad smile on his lips. Oh dear, no wonder Kate fell for him. It isn't even those extraordinary eyes. It's something in his expression. If he wasn't a good ten years younger than her... But those eyes are bloodshot and puffy in a face that is too pale. She can see the healing split in his lip too. Of course, Peter mentioned it. Hard to imagine anyone willing to mar that face, but some people are vandals by nature, Elizabeth thinks; they'd rather destroy than create or caretake.

"Thank you for not screaming and calling the police," he says to her with a charming little smile.

"Oh, I would've just maced you." 

The charm falters, but the smile becomes that much more real and Elizabeth, well, Elizabeth knows she's caught. The admiration in his gaze makes her preen a little inside. Nice to know she still holds up in comparison to other women. She's going to help him out, no doubt about it.

"Sit." 

"Do I get to speak next?" He folds himself down onto her low couch, hat off and set on his knee, and she wonders where he found it. Most men don't bother with one, which is a shame, they look so nice. Then again, she never wants to mess with one herself. Neal Caffrey, though, seems immune to hat-head.

Swallowing a ridiculous giggle, she leans her hips against her desk and gives him an inquiring look. "Speak." 

"Woof." 

"Words this time, Mr. Caffrey." 

"Neal." 

"Why and how did you find me?" 

He fingers the brim of the hat, glancing down at it, then up. "Kate had your husband checked out when she realized he was really after her. I read the file too." 

"And remembered where I work." 

"That you had your own business," he corrects.

Elizabeth folds her arms and considers him. He didn't lie. That's a plus. But there's more he hasn't said. "He's not my husband any more," she informs him.

Those blue eyes widen and then he's jerking to his feet, upset and apologetic, as he blurts, "I didn't know. You must think I'm an idiot, I just couldn't risk calling the FBI directly and I thought ‒ I wasn't thinking, not after I found out Kate's ‒ " He hides his face in one hand, gulping in a breath that's almost a sob. "Thank you again for not ‒ for letting me waste your time." 

"Stop," she tells him before he's taken two steps toward her office door.

He stops with his back to her and the tension in his shoulders shows right through the fine cloth of his coat.

"Peter and I have stayed in touch and I know he wants to find you very much," Elizabeth says gently. "He found... " 

"Kate." 

She's almost glad his back is still to her. Even one word gives away that he's devastated. Seeing his face just now might have her in tears.

"He found your Kate," she continues, "and he knows you could never have done that to her." 

His shoulders lift twice and his voice is tight and thick. "Thank you." 

"Go ahead, sit back down, and I'll call him." 

"Don't tell him it's about me," he whispers. His voice shakes.

Elizabeth raises her eyebrows at that, but busies herself making the call to Peter, while Neal seats himself again, the hat on the cushion beside him.

"Peter," she says when she ends up shuffled into voice mail hell, "when you get this, please come to my office. It's important." Peter's quite smart enough to know if she didn't say 'call me' she doesn't want to talk about it over the phone. "Well," she says when she's ended the call, "now we have to wait for him. Would you like some coffee?" 

Neal looks up at her gratefully. He's back in control of his emotions. "I would love some coffee." 

"Good. I want some breakfast too, so I think I'll order in. We can eat together. And you can call me Elizabeth." 

"It's a deal," he answers softly. 

~*~

They both realize Peter Burke isn't going to drop everything and run to his ex-wife's side the minute he gets the voice mail. It surprises Neal when Burke doesn't call Elizabeth at lunch, though. She works steadily at her desk while Neal sits on the couch hoping he won't go insane from waiting and trying not to think until he can't stand it any longer.

"Is there anything I can do to help?" he asks.

Elizabeth lifts her head to look at him instead of the work on her desk. Such blue eyes and dark, long hair ‒ not as dark as Kate's, but it still makes him ache with the memory of the silky slide of it in his hands ‒ and she has an air of competence and compassion that makes him wonder if maybe Burke isn't an idiot after all. How many people let the boyfriend of a criminal, never mind a murder suspect, while the day away in their office? Not to mention feed him a take-out breakfast. (Neal picked at it until Elizabeth gave him a stern look and pointed out, "I paid for that, you know." He has to admit, eating did make him feel better.) 

"Well, can you do calligraphy?" Elizabeth asks. Neal knows she expects him to demur. "Because I've got all of these ‒ " she gestures to the box of invitations, " ‒ to make out. By hand. By myself." She laughs softly. "Because Yvonne's calligraphy looks like a drunken doctor's scrawl." 

"Actually, I can." 

Up go her eyebrows. She immediately finds a piece of paper and extends the pen in her hand. "Show me." 

Neal leaves the couch and bends over the desk. He takes a quick look at the wording of the invitation Elizabeth just made out and recreates it with sure, quick strokes on the piece of scratch paper. With a smug smile, he turns it and slides it to her.

Elizabeth exams it with bright eyes, while tapping her lips with one manicured finger. The next instant she nails Neal with those eyes. "All right, mister, you're hired." 

"What's the wage?" he asks as she divides the blank invitations into two piles and hands him one.

"Oh, couch privileges and lunch." 

"Sounds good to me." Neal helps himself to another pot of ink and her spare pen. He double checks it has the same size nib she's using.

The soft shuffle of heavy paper and pens on it fills the office for the next hour or two, interrupted only when one or the other of them pauses to stretch and flex their fingers. The delicate, repetitive work soothes Neal. He lets his mind and heart empty for a while, the flow of ink a meditation. He's intensely grateful for the sense of peace it gives him, though he knows it won't last much longer.

It doesn't. Eventually boredom replaces zen and his mind wanders. He's still surprised Burke divorced, though he doesn't know why. Probably because he idealized the marriage he read about in those reports Kate had on the man. He thought Peter Burke had the things he wanted to have with Kate. Not that he thinks Elizabeth is the reason for their divorce. Burke's the one who hasn't even called her back and Neal can't help thinking of how much time the man spent chasing after Kate. That must have burned.

He glances up at Elizabeth for a moment. It still doesn't compare to the way Kate sometimes dropped Neal for a con, insisting they act like strangers if they even saw each other, or the way he had to swallow back his anger when she hooked up with another man for a job. Everybody lies, Kate always said, everybody uses everyone else, and Neal accepts that, but it still hurts, even now.

Right now, Kate's voice is telling him to beware of whatever Elizabeth means to get from being nice to him. Sometimes Neal hates that little voice. He'd rather just trust her.

Elizabeth sets her pen aside and waits for the ink to dry on the invitation she just finished. She glances at the phone sitting beside the pretty lamp Neal admired earlier. Her lips press together for just a second. "So," she says, smiling the next moment, like nothing bothers her, "are you hungry? Who'd think something like this would be so exhausting?" 

Neal's about to say he isn't hungry when his stomach gurgles. He winces while Elizabeth laughs.

"I'll take that as a yes." 

"Sorry." 

"Don't be ridiculous. I have a plan. There should be a sample platter and some other things from the new caterer in the refrigerator. We're going to taste test." 

Neal sets his own pen aside. "Why am I suddenly afraid?" 

"Hey, buster, this'll keep you off the streets." 

"One poison-taster, at your service." 

Elizabeth's gurgling laugh makes Neal want to laugh too.

"Let's hope nothing's that bad." 

He exerts himself to be funny and entertaining over the meal. Elizabeth's bright and shares many of Neal's real interests; it isn't hard. They talk about art and culture and food and music, what they like and what works for various venues ‒ Neal did a lot of the event work for the auction house that just fired him. Somehow, Elizabeth segues him into talking about Kate and he's telling her about Monaco ‒ the legal parts anyway ‒ and she's asking him questions that give away exactly how much Agent Burke knew about Kate and shared with his wife.

"But I loved her," he says finally, with a shrug, because he knows it doesn't make sense. Kate wasn't perfect, except in his heart. "Not just the idea of her. Her." He has to look down at the canapés on the plate before him, because Elizabeth's eyes are glittering with tears. "And I want whoever killed her to go away for the rest of his life." 

"Do you know how baffled Peter was by you and her?" Elizabeth asks in a choked voice.

"No?" 

"Well, he was. He couldn't figure out why Kate kept popping back to New York over and over. It made him crazy, because he thought he knew her." 

No one knew Kate. Not all of her. Neal knows that. Kate was made of secrets and invisible scars. Neal frowns at the idea Burke could have known her better than he did.

"And then he figured out it was you," Elizabeth goes on, "that you left and she was trying to find you." 

Hiding from Kate had been hard. Not just because she knew Neal and how he thought, but because it left him with an ache in his chest that never quite went away. He'd just... He couldn't take it after Barcelona and Matthew Keller. With Mozzie's help Neal had done his best to disappear, though he never told Mozzie why, only that he couldn't live with Kate if she kept partnering Keller. He still has nightmares.

"He spent weeks trying to find you and trying to figure out why you left Kate." 

"He did, though," Neal states with some bitterness. If Burke hadn't... He shuts that line of thought down hard. Too many ifs and he'll never finish apportioning blame.

"He did feel a little bad about using you to get to her." 

"He bugged my apartment," Neal tells her.

"Barely came home long enough to eat, shower, sleep and change clothes for months," Elizabeth continues and she sounds just a little bitter herself. "He leaked where you were and then he watched. Oh, and he talked about you too. He kept speculating over what Kate could have done that finally broke you two up." She looks at Neal and waits for him to fill that in, but he's never going to talk about what Kate and Keller did in Barcelona. He looks back silently until she nods her understanding that the unspoken question won't be answered. "Well. Since Peter is taking his own sweet time, do you want to get back to those invitations?" 

"I think we can get them done by the end of the day," Neal agrees.

"I really should hire you. You're perfect." 

"I should take you up on that. My last job tanked after someone told my boss about about Kate." 

~*~

Maybe Elizabeth is right, Peter acknowledges to himself as he knocks on the rear door to Mitchell Premier Events. He's already so intent on finding Neal ‒ Caffrey, he corrects himself, but somewhere in the last day, Caffrey's become Neal to him ‒ that he blew off her phone message. He has no idea why she'd contact him so soon after saying they were done, but now he worries she's in trouble.

It certainly cements all her reasons for not getting back together.

Elizabeth opens the door with the strangest expression.

"I'm sorry I didn't call back or get here sooner," Peter tells her sincerely. "What's wrong?" 

Elizabeth's rolls her eyes at him. "Nothing, but if there was, I'd have dealt with it by now." On occasion, Elizabeth can be a little bitchy, but Peter figures she's entitled. It's nine in the evening and he never even called her back. She gestures to him to come inside. "This is something of yours." 

Peter starts to apologize again and stops himself. "So what is it?" he asks instead as he follows her inside and into her office. A single, Tiffany glass-shaded lamp and Elizabeth's laptop are all that lights it; it takes him a moment to realize someone else is in the office. "Who ‒ ?" 

His eyes adapt and he recognizes the figure curled on his side, asleep under a light blue blanket on Elizabeth's office sofa. Caffrey's too long for it and his knees are bent, forming his body into a question mark. What the hell is Neal Caffrey doing in Elizabeth's office? 

His attention snaps back to Elizabeth as he tries to make sense of this collision of personal life and professional. "Why didn't you say it was about my case?" 

"I wanted to see what you'd do if I didn't." 

Oh. Damn it. What had he done? Ignored her call because she hadn't given him a reason she needed to speak to him, because it wasn't case-related. He couldn't take the time to make a single phone call. He doesn't need to wonder why he is divorced, does he? How can he be so utterly stupid when it comes to someone he loves? 

He just counts on El being able to handle anything she needs to on her own. It's one of the things he loves about her. Having to always do so, though, that's likely one of the things she doesn't love about Peter. The cynical twist to her lips says it all. He's blown it again and he'll have to work hard for her to forgive him. Again.

El will forgive him in time, she doesn't hold grudges long. She doesn't forget, though, either.

He wants to protest, again, _I love you_. He doesn't. It's neither the time nor the place. Besides, Peter's finally starting to get the idea that loving her isn't enough, that he needs to do more than just say it.

Caffrey stirs, half asleep and half bewildered by the blanket over him as he sits up and squints at Peter and Elizabeth. "I asked her to keep my name out of it, just in case," he murmurs. A wave of disheveled dark hair falls over his forehead. He shoves it off impatiently and Peter sees his hand tremble.

Peter frowns at that. "Why?" 

Caffrey glances at Elizabeth and asks her, "Do you want to hear this? Since you're not ‒ " 

"I feel like I'm involved now," Elizabeth tells him. Another thing Peter loves about her: she's fearless and utterly unimpressed by his job. She's going to champion Caffrey, even if Caffrey doesn't know it yet.

Or maybe he does.

The soft smile Caffrey gives Elizabeth burns Peter with jealousy. He doesn't want any man to give El a look like that. He doesn't want Caffrey looking at anyone like that either, which makes no sense, so he's not going to think about it.

"Okay." 

"Sit down, you don't need to loom over everyone," Elizabeth orders. She takes her desk chair, a reminder that they are in her office. She's not to be an afterthought in this, she's involved herself. Peter smiles at her despite himself.

Caffrey folds the blanket neatly and sets it on the back of the sofa, fingers smoothing over the waffle weave absently, before straightening the satin edging. Peter takes the client's chair opposite Elizabeth's desk and turns it so he can see both of them. It's easier to make out details now and he can pick out the fading marks of the beating Buenavista mentioned. Caffrey makes bruised look good. It's almost annoying, except Caffrey's eyes are blood-shot and glassy with a pain that has nothing to do with anything physical. He's at the end of his rope.

He knows about Kate, that's clear.

"I'm sorry I didn't find her fast enough," Peter says.

Caffrey's head jerks up and his eyes widen. "You ‒ you're the one who found her?" 

"Not that hard," Peter tells him as gently as he can. "She ran straight to you, to where she thought you'd be." 

Grief crumples Caffrey's face as he chokes out, "I wasn't there." He covers his face with his hands briefly, then shoves his long fingers through his hair. "I didn't know she was going to do that, I just... I ran. I didn't think anyone could get to Kate in Danbury and I was... " 

"You were scared," Elizabeth murmurs. "It's okay." 

He's shaking his head.

"Why'd you run?" Peter sits forward and rests his elbows on his knees. He's still got his overcoat on and it stretches tight over his shoulders, faintly uncomfortable thanks to his suit coat and the shoulder holster he's wearing under that. He doesn't want to intimidate Caffrey, so he keeps the coats on, hiding his service weapon, and tries not to frown or loom. It isn't necessary anyway; Caffrey's as helpless in the face of El's warm smile and kindness as Peter.

She really should have gone into interrogation.

"God. It started with a feeling, a couple of months ago. Someone was watching me." He angles a sardonic look up at Peter. "I am familiar with the sensation." 

"Granted." 

With a tiny flinch at the memory, Caffrey pushes forward. "I couldn't figure it out, why you or anyone else would be watching me again, so I tried to ignore it. A friend got me some things to do a bug sweep and there was nothing. It felt like I was going crazy, actually, so I didn't say anything to Kate." 

Finding out the name of the 'friend' that could provide bug-sweeping equipment will have to wait, but Peter makes a mental note.

Caffrey explains the first break-in of his apartment and his choice not to report it, since nothing was taken. It's more that he's absorbed a bone deep distrust of law enforcement from Kate and the life they led, Peter knows, but doesn't call him on it.

"The second time, the whole place was tossed," Caffrey says quietly. A shudder runs through him. "Stuff just ruined. It felt... mean. There were phone calls too. Hang-ups." 

"It must have been awful," Elizabeth sympathizes.

"Yeah, but it was still stuff. The calls were almost worse. I thought it was just a breather at first, but the threats started after the last break-in. Things he was going to do, stuff I was supposed to tell Kate." 

"You didn't tell her about it?" Peter prompts, wondering.

"I didn't think she could do anything ‒ I didn't want her to do anything," Caffrey points out. "I acted like I always did when I visited... I wasn't going to waste my time with Kate talking about some creep." The anger in his voice is good. It'll give him the strength to help Peter figure this mess out. "The next day I went to work and my boss told me I was fired. Just like that. Some guy came around, told them I worked with an art thief." 

"Were you still working for the same auction house?" Peter asks. Some guy isn't enough, he'll have Diana or Clinton go around and question everyone at the auction house and find out more.

"Yeah. Yeah. It's kind of soul-destroying, but there aren't that many jobs for art school drop-outs, you know?" 

"Did you find out who sabotaged your job?" The shape of something is resolving in Peter's thoughts. He needs the rest of the story, though, before he can see it clearly.

"No." Caffrey swallows hard and fear flickers in his eyes as he meets Peter's gaze. "Not then." 

"But you know now." Peter knows in his bones. Surveillance. Assault. Legal harassment used as a lever. A .40 S&W bullet. A kid scared to even call him at the Federal Building and say his name, contacting him instead through Peter's ex-wife. The picture looming out of the dark just gets uglier. It's just screaming someone inside the Bureau is involved.

"After I came back from Danbury." Caffrey draws into himself a little. They're getting close to the part of the story that frightens him and must have even before Kate's murder. "My landlord tells me he knows I lost my job and he wants me out. I could see he was freaked out." 

"Someone put pressure on him." 

"Probably." A shrug dismisses the landlord. "I go up to the apartment and the door is standing open. This guy is waiting inside." 

"Did you get a name?" 

Caffrey doesn't turn to Peter, he's staring at the wall a little to the side of Elizabeth's shoulder, but his gaze cuts to the side. "He had a gun." 

Peter freezes, not even breathing. He's interviewed witnesses before and knows he needs to be patient with the apparently tangental answers anyway. There will be a point, once Caffrey circles round to it. The gun is important to Caffrey; it's important to Peter too. He doesn't let himself demand what make or caliber. Kate didn't do guns and Caffrey doesn't strike him as the kind of guy who likes them either.

Caffrey swallows hard. "And a badge." His gaze flicks to Peter and away again. "An FBI badge." Peter keeps his expression calm. That's what Peter's been afraid of since Diana handed over the ballistics report.

There's not much chance Caffrey got it, but Peter has to ask anyway. "Badge number?" 

"I didn't ‒ " Caffrey shakes his head in frustration. "He flashed it fast." 

"I understand. But you got the name, didn't you?" 

Caffrey cradles his good hand over the other. The protective curl of his fingers over the splint gives away what he's remembering as well as who. Peter remembers Teresa Buenavista's description. She was right: Caffrey's afraid. He nods confirmation though. He remembers the name.

"Fowler." Caffrey lifts his gaze to meet Peter's. "Special Agent Fowler." 

~*~

Teasing the story of the last two months out of Neal is slow going. Sometime during the process, Peter slips and begins thinking of him the way Elizabeth is, as Neal. Elizabeth proves better at keeping Neal from drifting into a fog of grief than Peter. Peter just feels pained and helpless each time Neal's words stutter and his gaze loses focus. Elizabeth sits herself beside Neal on the sofa and rubs his shoulders and after a minute Neal gathers himself back together again and answers what Peter last asked.

Divorced or not, Peter can still share a boat load of thoughts with Elizabeth through just a look. She stays beside Neal when they get to the last time Neal saw Kate and Peter stays in his chair. Danbury sent him video from the visitor's booths, but it's hideously grainy and without sound. He can read Neal's lips in it only part of the time and the rest is just the back of Kate's head. He has no idea what she said.

Peter replays the video in his head, seeing what Neal never did: after he walked away, Kate stood with her hand still pressed to the Plexiglas for a long moment, then sank down into her chair again and dropped her face into her arms. She only moved when one of the C.O.s prompted her. He's not going to let Neal ever see that video, he realizes.

"I asked her what was going on," Neal says softly. He's worrying at the splint on his finger again; it's a nervous habit Peter suspects will stay long after the bone heals. "Kate said they were using me to get to her." 

"Sounds right." 

"I snapped at her. It was like ‒ I got mad. I told her she could tell me or we were quits." Neal sounds lost. "I didn't mean it." 

"I'm sure she knew," Elizabeth murmurs. She takes Neal's hand with the splint in both of hers, protecting him from himself. She gives Peter a look. The one that says do something. He grimaces back at her. Neal never sees, never lifts his head.

"I didn't mean it," he repeats. "But I didn't go back on Wednesday. I could have seen her, I could have stopped her, she kept saying she was trying to protect me, I thought..." Neal ducks his head again. Neal keeps switching back and forth in his narration and it takes Peter a beat to realize that he's back to the last visit, not the missed one. Voice raw with self-recrimination, Neal finishes, "I told her she was just taking care of herself, just like always, and that I knew she'd rather see me get killed than give up anything." 

Peter bites his tongue, because he thinks that might be true. No matter how much Peter liked Kate and admired her brilliance, he isn't fooling himself that she was a good person. For a while, after El left him, he hated her, but he got past that. Kate wasn't bad, didn't have that malign streak that glories in paining others, but she was selfish. Neal might not admit it, but on some level he knows that too. Peter thinks that she might have changed given the time and another chance. He wishes she was alive to prove him right or even prove him wrong. The world is a little dimmer without her. He can hardly say any of that to Neal, though. Dead, Kate's quickly becoming enshrined in Neal's eyes. He won't accept Peter's estimate of her. Besides, it may not be true and what can it possibly help to disillusion Neal any further? If the love was a lie, let him go on believing in it. It's too late for Kate to disappoint him again.

"Tell me what the message for Kate was again." 

_"He wants it back,"_ Neal recites immediately. "I don't know who, I don't know what." 

"But Kate did?" 

Neal shrugs and whispers, "She said she didn't." There's no confidence in his voice, just the opposite. Yeah, even Neal doesn't believe it.

Peter silently curses Kate Moreau. He spent enough time being three, then two, then one step behind her that he is quite familiar with the damage she left behind from her cons and heists. Violence wasn't Kate's thing, but that doesn't mean her victims weren't left feeling violated. She's dead and she's still hurting people, even the man she claimed to love.

Love can hurt, but it shouldn't wreck.

Whoever killed Kate is worse, though. He thinks of the single painting they left in Neal's apartment. Did they show it to her to prove they had Neal, to persuade her to talk by threatening him? Likely. Likely if Neal hadn't bolted when he did, the killer would have been holding a gun to Neal's head to leverage Kate into cooperating. Neal would have ended up dead and still on the floor next to Kate.

It makes Peter want to hit something.

What did Kate take that is worth murder? Not just murder, but harassment, beatings, threats, the systematic destruction of Neal's life just to prove to her that whoever she'd crossed is serious? Despite everything, Peter can't figure who it could be. Kate never conned the sort of mark who would strike back like this.

Eyes narrowed, he contemplates Neal.

Whoever is behind the murder knew Kate well. Knew about Neal and knew Kate would go to desperate lengths for him. Thought so, at least. Escaping Danbury... How close a watch needed to be kept to be waiting for Kate when she reached Neal's old apartment? They were faster than Peter and he caught up in thirteen hours. Peter scrubs at his face tiredly. He's making this person into an evil mastermind. It doesn't take a genius to check out the visitor's logs and find Neal. Screwing over his life probably took a couple hours and some well placed threats, plus a couple hundred bucks to hire the thugs to beat him up. Not hard at all and not much of a risk, if it didn't draw Kate out.

Damn it.

"Let's look at this another way," he says. "Why would they think Kate still had whatever it is?" 

Neal frowns at him as he answers, "If she didn't fence it." 

Peter nods. Simple enough. He can't let himself trust Neal is going to always tell the truth, though. No one tells all of the truth all of the time, especially not to the feds or the cops. Neal may look innocent as a lamb, but he's not. Peter needs to keep that at the forefront of his thoughts. He can't forget that Neal learned from the best.

He can't assume Neal's complicit, either. Innocent until proven guilty. Not that it matters in some ways; Neal could be neck-deep in whatever Kate got up to and it would still be part of Peter's job to protect him from whoever killed Kate. That's part of Peter's own code, the one he's never had to test against the Bureau's rules because he's been lucky.

"I know some of what Kate stole was on commission, but the rest: did she fence all of it?" It's a test. He watches to see how Neal reacts.

"I really don't know," Neal replies, still frowning, tension tightening him up visibly. "I didn't want to know." 

"Okay," Peter says because El is glaring at him again. She's clearly decided to champion Neal in any Peter versus Neal situation. He's not trying to trick Neal into admitting to any crimes, though. Anything Neal did for Kate was minor and years ago now. "Do you know who her fence was?" 

"I don't think she always dealt with the same one." 

"No names come to mind?" 

"Just Alex," Neal says slowly. Is that a tiny flicker of guilt? Dark lashes sweep down over his eyes and he looks at his hands.

No fences named Alex spring to Peter's mind. Of course, Kate operated in Europe as much as the US; Peter isn't conversant with every high-end fence operating even in New York. It frustrates him, though, to realize again that he doesn't know as much as he always thought he did.

"Anyway, Kate never did any business with Alex after Copenhagen." 

"Why? 

Neal visibly winces this time. Elizabeth catches it. "Neal?" she asks.

Neal blows out a long breath, but he answers candidly. "Kate thought I slept with her." 

"Ouch," Peter says before he even thinks, while the name finally clicks and he remembers Alexandra Hunter, a sometime conwoman and thief herself, who does indeed confine most of her work to Europe. The Bureau has a file on her, but she's never been flashy enough to go after actively. Not when there are far more egregious criminals operating in the States to target. No one's tagged her as a fence before; that information might break some cold cases.

"She break up with you over that?" 

Rueful, Neal asks, "What do you think?" He hangs his head again and Peter can see he's thinking he wasted those four months.

"But you got back together again." 

Neal lifts one shoulder in a half shrug. "She needed something from Mo-- a friend and he wouldn't talk to her, so she had to get me to go to him. We just... fell back together." Very, very softly, he adds, "I told her I didn't cheat and she said she believed me. I don't know if she did, though." 

"But you didn't," Elizabeth says.

"You believe me?" Neal's so hopeful even Peter believes him. Why El does baffles him, but her instincts about people have always been impeccable.

"Of course." 

Neal drops his gaze to his hand clasped in El's two and sighs, taut shoulders relaxing, and his grip tightens in hers. His "Thank you," is utterly heartfelt.

Peter recreates the time line of Kate's activities in Europe in his head and several things make much more sense. Before, he thought Kate lit out from Copenhagen for the South of France and Neal bolted back to New York for four months because a heist had gone south. It was the longest separation during their relationship until Neal turned the tables and left Kate at the end.

"So there's no easy way to know what Kate stashed away to cool off," Peter says. He doesn't want to say that whoever killed Kate probably got the locations of her caches from her before firing the bullet that killed her. That's why whoever did it lured her out of Danbury with the threat to Neal: so they could question her.

Damn, he thinks, the killer may already have whatever Kate stole. If so, it just became that much harder to find him, since without needing to do anything more, the killer can lie low until Kate's murder ends up relegated to a cold case file. Maybe the killer doesn't need to do anything else anyway. If so, at least Neal is no longer in danger. He doesn't mention that either.

Time to try another tack. "This guy who relayed the threat, Fowler," Peter says. "Could you describe him ‒ " 

"I could draw him." Neal straightens, confidence returning with the prospect of some agency. "I could paint a damned portrait of him. I can't forget his face when I try." 

"A recognizable sketch that could be scanned to run with our facial recognition software would be sufficient." 

"I could do that." 

"Good. That's on the agenda for tomorrow." 

Neal nods wearily, then asks, "What next?" 

Peter checks his watch. It's late, but not too late. The detectives that caught Kate's case are probably still working. If not, he can schedule something for the morning if he makes the call now.

"Talk to me, tell me where you were the day before yesterday." 

Relief eases Peter's tense muscle before Neal even opens his mouth, because Neal relaxes. "Clothes. Fowler took everything except what I was wearing to visit Kate. I went to three different thrift stores. At the last one, I met June Ellington." Neal's pause telegraphs that he expects Peter and El to recognize the name. "June Ellington. Byron Ellington's wife." 

El twigs before Peter does. "Of course, she's active in several children's charities, I've seen her name on the fundraiser invites." 

"Byron Ellington's paintings sell for a minimum six figures," Peter says. The years he spent working for Phil Kramer on the Art Squad taught him more about art than he ever cared to know. He's even handled a couple of genuine Ellingtons. They were among the few modern art pieces he thought merited the values put on them.

Neal's nodding, his eyes bright with excitement. "She has a loft with a studio. She offered it to me." 

"Unbelievable," Peter says with a shake of his head. He narrows his eyes. "You didn't con her ‒ " 

A small, nasty part of Peter does wonder. Another part considers Ellington's widow could be the one taking advantage of Neal because he's that desperate. Both options are old, old stories.

"Peter!" Elizabeth snaps.

"She wants an artist to use the studio," Neal replies tonelessly. "I still had paint on my hands ‒ " 

He doesn't know damn all about June Ellington, but he'll be running a background check on her as soon as he's back at the office. If she has a stock of Ellington's work, at the prices they command, she no doubt can afford to support an artist in residence, a boy toy, or whatever she wants to call Neal.

"I'm sorry," Peter apologizes, not needing Elizabeth's prompting, "that was uncalled for and unkind." 

Neal just shrugs as if it meant nothing to him. Peter doubts that, but knows pushing the matter won't help it. Neal finishes, saying, "We left the thrift store and spent the rest of the afternoon at June's. She showed me the loft and then we talked about art. She misses Byron." 

"But you were there from... ?" 

"Around noon to eight." 

"So Mrs. Ellington alibis you?" 

"Yes. Her driver took us from the thrift shop and a couple of her staff were around. I ate dinner with her." Neal quietly finishes, "I was there while Kate was dying." 

~*~

The news that Neal has a very good alibi loosens an ugly knot in Peter's gut. It doesn't erase the grief bruising Neal's eyes or still the tremor in his hands, but it means Peter can call Mike Shattuck and tell him to get the detectives to talk to June Ellington, as well as pulling the footage from the thrift store's security cameras. Time of death for Kate is locked into a very narrow window.

They stop at Mrs. Ellington's house ‒ mansion ‒ on Riverside and Neal ends up with a bag and a kiss to the cheek from her after Peter explains the situation. The way Neal soaks in even that bit of comfort and affection makes Peter wonder what kind of childhood he had. All his research on Kate and Neal never turned up anything before the kid was eighteen.

He shakes his head at himself. Assumptions and missed details have derailed more cases... He keeps tripping over his own. At least his gut hasn't betrayed him: Neal's innocent. Video from the thrift store will confirm Neal's alibi and June Ellington will too; she made that very clear. Neal's clear. Thank God.

Peter doesn't take any time to examine why he's so relieved.

He still takes Neal to the police station, despite the hour, and sits, silently sipping a coffee, while Neal gives a statement to the two detectives assigned to Kate's case. No one asks the questions Peter thinks are really important. Neal doesn't volunteer one extra word ‒ Kate's training no doubt.

Who got Neal fired, who broke into his apartment, who beat him up, who stole his paintings? The detectives don't even ask if Neal knew Kate was going to make a break. Ryan and Esposito accept Neal's, "I told her I wasn't coming back and I left," as if it makes any sense. Peter has to swallow a snort of derision. No point in pissing off NYPD any more than he already has. He just made these two detectives' case harder since Neal was their only suspect.

It isn't even that Neal's lying. He's telling the truth, but he isn't cooperating, isn't helping. Peter knows when Kate was trying she could lie with the truth and he's sure Neal picked up enough from her to do it too. This isn't that. Neal just doesn't trust the NYPD enough to open up and they aren't interested enough to try prying him open.

"Freaks," Esposito mutters. "Some burglars get freaky, keep coming back to the same place, like they're stalking the vic." 

Neal's brows draw together and he shudders.

"That why you moved out?" the other one, Ryan, asks Neal.

Peter scowls. They aren't as bad at this as he thought. They're double teaming Neal, trawling for any slip that might put him back at the top of the list.

"I got fired. No paycheck, no rent check," Neal replies tiredly. He's deadly pale and his eyes have gone dull while looking toward the bile green wall but probably not seeing it. "I ‒ " His gaze falls to his hands on his lap and he picks at the tape on his finger splint. "If I'd stayed, I would've been there, I could have seen her ‒ " 

"And been shot too," Ryan states. "Probably." 

Neal's tone is empty. "That would be better than this." 

Peter squeezes his eyes shut. No way he's leaving Neal off at June Ellington's mansion. He never meant to anyway, not with a killer out there, but he's definitely not leaving the kid alone anywhere now. Someone needs to keep him on suicide watch. He reaches over and pulls Neal's good hand away from the splint. "Leave that alone." 

Esposito raises an eyebrow at Peter. Peter stares back, daring him to make a remark.

Neal winces at his grip, pulling against it, before glancing away from Peter to Ryan, avoiding Esposito's eyes too. Peter wants to keep holding onto Neal's wrist ‒ he can feel the pulse battering like a panicked bird beneath the thin skin ‒ but shoves aside the impulse.

"Do you think that's what happened?" Neal asks Esposito. "Did Kate walk in on some creep who thought I'd be there?" 

"Got a better idea?" Esposito asks.

"I don't know what would be better, except Kate still alive," Neal replies. It's a beautiful evasion. If Esposito or Ryan see through it, they still can't call Neal on it.

Of course, Neal has a different idea, but it isn't better. Neal thinks Fowler really is an FBI agent and had a hand in killing Kate, if he didn't in fact pull the trigger, and Peter isn't going to share that with these two detectives. If the Bureau has a dirty agent, the last thing they need is NYPD sniffing around and alerting him that Neal has talked to Peter. He's going to Reese and he's going to set Diana and Jones digging until he figures out what the bastard's connection is to Kate, but it's going to stay covert just as long as possible.

He's hoping that there is no one in the Bureau that matches the description and name Neal gave him. Kate moved in a world of fakes and imposters and cons. Maybe 'Fowler' is one of them.

Esposito and Ryan wind it up, taking about another twenty minutes, and presenting Neal with a printed version of his statement to read through before he signs it. Neal goes through the whole thing, brows drawn together, his gaze flicking across the papers intently, before scrawling his signature and handing it back.

"Where're you staying now?" Esposito asks as he files the papers.

"Riverside ‒ " 

"I'm stashing him at my apartment," Peter says.

Neal turns and gives him a completely bewildered look. "What?" 

The two detectives both raise their eyebrows.

"Tomorrow you're coming with me to the Javits Building and giving me everything you know about Kate's caches," Peter tells Neal.

"I can tell you that now," Neal snaps. "Nothing. Nothing. I didn't want to know, she didn't trust anyone anyway." 

"Thought you said she loved you?" Esposito offers with a sardonic smile.

Neal flinches and closes his eyes. Peter scowls at Esposito. He doesn't say love and trust aren't always handcuffed together. Or that Kate was a piece of work who used Neal as much as she loved him. If she loved him. Jury's still out. He dumps his coffee in a garbage can and pulls Neal to his feet with a hand on his shoulder. "C'mon. You can convince me tomorrow." 

Maybe Neal would fight him over this if he wasn't exhausted with grief and ready to drop. Instead, he lets Peter lead him out of the police station, climbs in the passenger side of the Bureau vehicle Peter drives, and slumps silently. Peter has to prompt him to put on his seat belt. He falls asleep during the drive.

His face is wet when Peter parks and shakes him awake. Jesus. The kid was crying in his sleep. "We're here." Peter does him the favor of saying nothing as he scrubs his face dry like a small boy.

Neal glances around as they make their way up four flights to Peter's efficiency apartment. "This isn't exactly impressive." 

"It isn't Riverside Drive," Peter admits readily, "but I don't give a damn." He just needs a place to sleep, shower, and keep his clothes since the divorce.

Neal's eyebrows go up as Peter unlocks the door and lets them in. "Yeah, I can see that." 

Peter chuckles. "Get in here, Caffrey. Mi casa blah blah blah." 

"An invitation like that, how can I say no?" 

He gives Neal a little push to the back to get him moving when he stays in the hall and pretends he doesn't notice the shudders running through him. If Neal's crying again, Peter has no idea what could help, so he's going to default to what he'd want and let him grieve as privately as he can. 

~*~

Agent Burke rests his hand on the small of Neal's back, gently guiding him inside the apartment, and for a moment Neal feels warm again. The touch and the feeling of safety are both gone in the next second, leaving him with nothing but a welter of confused emotions. Exhaustion dulls them, but not enough, and all he wants is to escape reality and sleep. Keeping up a facade of being even mildly all right and answering the cops' questions for the last four hours has wiped him out. He says something smart-ass before they go in and that's it: he's got nothing left to give.

He leaves the bag he packed when they stopped in at June's to explain that Neal would be staying with Burke until they knew who killed Kate under a table by the door. Nothing in it really feels like his yet, not like the personal stuff Neal picked up for himself when he bolted for Mozzie's place. He's got to get back there and pick those things up or buy more. Burke guides him through the small rooms, showing him where everything is. Neal follows, trying to listen, but all he's getting is that Burke's talking. He finds himself leaning against the wall outside the bathroom, hoping it will hold him up. It's exhausting just trying to think out his next step and now he's stuck here with no toothbrush or underwear and he wonders how much longer he'll be able to cope.

Going on the run with Kate seems easy in retrospect. He always knew he could stop, Neal realizes, because he wasn't the one being chased. No one cared about catching him.

He doesn't know his eyes are shut until Burke's hand on his arm startles him and he jerks away and stumbles into the door jamb. The pain focuses him back into the present, though.

"You look ready to drop," Burke says kindly.

Neal blinks and manages a nod. His throat is too tight to talk. Burke hasn't done anything to frighten him, but the wall and his hand on a still sore bruise combine to send a jolt of remembered terror through him.

"Go ahead and sit down. I'll make up the couch for you." 

Neal nods again before making his slow way back to the main room. He sits on the edge of Burke's recliner; if he sits back, he'll go to sleep there. Even so, he sways back a couple of times, only the sensation of falling snapping him into wakefulness again.

He barely registers Burke bringing out sheets and a blanket, even a pillow; it seems to happen in slide show flashes.

"Okay," Burke says, making Neal lift his drooping head. "Don't go anywhere if you wake up before me." 

He leaves Neal then, to Neal's everlasting relief.

The couch is miserable, but the sheets are clean and soft against Neal's skin when he strips down to a tank shirt and his boxers. Sleep claims him before he can make sense of everything that has happened in the previous forty-eight hours. The last thing running through his mind is the way Burke's hand felt, a tactile promise that if Neal fell, someone would catch him. 

~*~

His finger snaps again.

Neal curls his hand to his chest, lost in the nightmare, reliving the heavy hands shoving him against the wall just inside the doorway of his building. His messenger bag is ripped away from him and pawed through, but he quickly knows this is no mugging.

"Quit fighting, Caffrey." 

Muggers don't know your name.

He thrashes until the muzzle of a gun taps against his throat, just under his jaw. The gun smells of cordite and oil and the leather of the holster it's kept in. "My name's Fowler. Agent Fowler, in case you're stupid enough to think about taking this to the cops." With his free hand he flips open a badge case, then makes it disappear again.

Neal freezes, pinned against the wall, and swallows involuntarily, feeling the cold metal against his Adam's apple. He shakes his head minutely. Fowler smiles. "Good boy." 

The first fist sinks into Neal's unprotected belly and he almost doubles over, but the gun stops him.

"That's right, hold still." 

He keeps his feet because of the wall behind him as the two other men beat the shit out of him. They concentrate the blows to his gut and his ribs. He's panting and barely aware at the end. Only the gun keeps him conscious. The last three blows are to his face, almost afterthoughts or punctuation, something to make sure the damage shows. Through it all, the foyer stays empty. It's strange, Neal thinks between gasps, that no one has come in or gone out. The sun comes through the glass in the doors and lights the tile floor with color. There is a fragile splatter of crimson from the hit that split his lip open. The color is fabulous against the faux marble, not clean, but pure. Neal fixates on it until all he knows is scarlet.

"Tougher than you look, kid," Fowler says. He smiles again. His eyes are emptier than those of the two thugs with him. Smarter too. He's not enjoying himself, he's just doing a job. Somehow that's scarier. "Now just two more things." 

Bloody spittle runs down Neal's chin. He can't incline his head enough to spit it away without hitting Fowler. Expectorating in his face might be fine and defiant, but Neal doesn't want his head blown off, so it's not worth it.

"One, tell Kate: _he wants it back._ " 

Neal's eyes widen in shock. All of this, everything that's happened in the last month, has all been a message for Kate.

Fowler's late forties to early fifties, short cut hair, pale eyes, pink skin, bad suit, Neal's never going to forget him. He nods to the thug who is mostly holding Neal up on his left side. The thug takes Neal's hand, singles out his little finger, and begins to bend it backward. The agony builds and builds, all out of proportion to a single finger, and Neal slams his head back against the wall, breathing hard and trying to swallow a scream.

"Two, next time it's both hands." 

Neal's finger snaps.

He jerks awake, sweating and sick to his stomach, pain still pulsing through his finger and up his arm. At first he thinks he's on Mozzie's couch again, but after a panicky moment of confusion, he remembers he's in Agent Burke's apartment. He's alone ‒ Burke's in the bedroom ‒ and unhurt. The sheet and blanket Burke provided are tangled around him, half trailing on the floor. Once Neal can breathe again, he scrambles back into the corner of the couch and curls into a ball of misery.

He doesn't sleep again. Every time he closes his eyes, Fowler's there and his finger snaps.

Eventually, he cracks and pulls out his phone to call Mozzie. Mozzie answers on the first ring, despite the hour, and listens as Neal describes his day, beginning with Elizabeth no longer Burke Mitchell and ending with sleeping on Peter Burke's couch. Predictably, Mozzie's unhappiness over any association with the authorities is accompanied by a rant over not trusting the FBI, but undercut by a thread of genuine concern. He ends by asking, "Are you sure about what you're doing?" 

"No," Neal admits, "but, Moz, I've got no idea what else to do." 

~*~

Neal tips Byron's trilby over one eye, straightens his shoulders, and follows Agent Burke out of the elevator onto the twenty-first floor of the Federal Building, down the hall and through the glass doors into the FBI's White Collar Unit. He pastes on a carefree smile, even though it's an act, because like he told Mozzie, he doesn't know what else to do. Cooperating with Agent Burke makes him uncomfortable, which is foolish, but years of being around Kate and Mozzie have inculcated him with more than a little of their distrust and disdain for the authorities.

And then there's Fowler.

It's an open plan office and several agents working at their desks lift their heads to observe them. A very sharp looking woman actually leaves her desk and heads over.

"So this is where you work?" Neal asks.

"My office is up there," Burke answers with a nod to the second level.

"Hmm." 

Neal wonders if the fishbowl effect makes the agents working here any more productive or honest. He dislikes the glass walls, even if they do give better light than just fluorescents. It makes him miss the reference book-lined cubbyhole he got to call an office at the auction house. The reminder annoys him: he left a few items in his desk there and never had a chance to retrieve them. He makes himself smile at the woman as she approaches rather than show how unhappy he is.

"Diana," Burke greets her.

"Boss." She surveys Neal calmly, recognition in her gaze, cataloging the vintage suit he's wearing, the fading remnants of the beating he took, and probably the bruised-looking bags under his eyes. She hands Burke the file in her hand.

"What's this?" Burke weighs the thin file in his hand.

"Background on Neal Caffrey." Her dark eyes hold a light of amusement as she speaks. "There's nothing there to tell where he is, though." She manages to get that out with a straight face. It's impressive. Neal wasn't sure if any other FBI agents would have a sense of humor or if it might be just Burke.

Neal grins at her while Burke grunts. "Diana, this is Neal Caffrey." 

"I guessed," she replies dryly. "There are pictures in the file." 

"Good ones, I hope?" Neal teases, his grin just getting wider as her expression hardens into skepticism.

Burke glances at Neal. "Don't grin in the office. Neal, this is Agent Diana Barrigan." 

"Diana," Neal says and tips the hat. It makes her smile back, but there's no spark there, none of the tiny signs he's learned to notice when someone is attracted to him. Nothing he'll have to pretend to be oblivious to while still trying to win her over.

"Neal," Diana replies, acknowledging the amusement and nothing more.

It makes Neal smile for real.

"None of that," Burke says. "No flirting." 

Neal shrugs his acceptance. It's just habit, something that comes naturally to him. Shutting it down might be a relief.

An imposing black agent arrives before Neal can say anything else. "Neal, this agent Clinton Jones. Jones, Neal Caffrey." 

"You found him that fast?" Jones asks Burke.

"Hah. I found him," Neal corrects. Agent Burke opens his mouth to object, but really can't. It's a stupid, tiny thing, but Neal's going to take his wins where he can and it feels good to best the agent even if he does like him.

Jones gives Neal a neutral smile. Neal smiles back, then frowns, realizing he remembers this agent. "You were there when Kate was arrested." 

It throws Jones off, just the way Neal meant it to. Jones even looks guilty for a second.

"Good memory," Burke comments. He's glancing through the file Diana handed him. Neal vows to get a look at it; he wants to know what the FBI thinks they know about him. "That should be useful." 

"Already told you I don't know where Kate kept anything," Neal replies.

Burke doesn't believe it, but Neal just smiles.

"Neal's going to give a statement," Burke tells Diana. "When he does, I'm going to want you to begin digging ‒ quietly ‒ into the name he gives us." 

"And then?" Neal asks.

"Then you're going to sit in my office while I figure out if you're still a target or just collateral damage so they could get at Kate." 

"I need to start looking for another job." 

"Check the classifieds," Burke says. "Though I'm pretty sure June would underwrite your painting career if you asked her." 

Neal scowls at him. "I'm not scamming June into supporting me." 

Burke snaps the file closed. "All right. But you're still staying here today." 

~*~

Agent Burke disappears into his boss's office just before lunch and doesn't reappear. Neal does read the paper, even the classifieds, pokes around Burke's desk and contemplates trying to guess his password and getting on his computer, but decides the odds aren't good enough. He finds a legal pad and steals a pen and sketches randomly, doing an ink cityscape of the view from the window, but after that he ends up sketching Kate and has to stop when he sees it turning into a picture of her death.

Mozzie would say he's being morbid; Neal knows he's just torturing himself, imagining how she must have looked. Somewhere there are crime scene photos. He doesn't want to see them. He needs to remember Kate vital and alive.

Restless, he pokes his head out of the office. Down in the bullpen, Jones and Diana are busy at work. Burke told him to stay in the office, but there are limits to Neal's obedience. He leaves his hat to show he'll be back and strolls out. He's almost at the glass doors when Jones arrives at his shoulder.

"Going somewhere?" 

Neal angles another smile at him. "Washroom?" 

Jones walks Neal out and down the corridor to the door of the men's room. Like a hall monitor in school, Neal thinks. "Please tell me you aren't going in with me." 

It pulls a smile from the big agent. "No windows." 

When he's done and his hands are washed, Neal amuses himself for a second looking around the men's room and figuring out how to get out without using the door. When he comes out and Jones is waiting, leaning against a wall, checking something on his phone, Neal has to say, "Ventilation ducts." 

Jones pockets his phone. "Come on, Houdini. Boss says we should get lunch and some coffee. He's still stuck in a meeting." 

"Let me get my hat." 

"What's with the hat?" 

"Don't you like it?" Neal asks once he has the trilby. He tries out a trick that leaves it on his head. It's exhausting pretending he's silly and entertaining, but the alternative is still breaking down in front of a bunch of strangers. He isn't going to do that. He's going to act and keep on acting and no one's going to see what a mess he is inside. He's going to make Kate proud. He's going to fool the FBI into doing what he can't and then he's going to see her killer pay. He sweeps the hat off just in time to gesture Jones ahead of him into the elevator. "I like it. It has style." 

A snort of laughter is Neal's reward for his clowning.

"Anything you're in the mood for?" Jones asks amiably as they walk out of the building.

Nausea churns through Neal's stomach, but he hides it. "I'll bow to your better knowledge of the dining establishments around here." 

The sun shines like Neal's life didn't fall apart only days ago, New Yorkers stride along the sidewalk as purposefully as ever, and Neal knows more than one woman gives him and Jones a second admiring look. He tips the hat lower over his eyes, so no one will see that the smile on his mouth doesn't reach them.

Jones pays for lunch for both of them and Neal says nothing. He's low on cash and it's second nature anyway; Kate never paid for a meal she could scam from someone else. He only orders a salad though.

Setting his fork down, Neal looks at the greens left before pushing the plate slightly away.

"Agent Jones ‒ " 

"Just Jones, it's easier." 

"Ah. Thanks." Neal gestured at his plate. "For this too." 

"So what do you want?" Jones asks.

Neal glances up at him. "I need to get my mail." 

"Where?" 

"You'll ‒ " 

"Yes." Jones smiles. "Peter isn't that inflexible, Caffrey. C'mon. It took a smart guy to figure out how to catch your girlfriend. He wants to make sure you don't disappear, not lock you up." 

Since Jones makes it easy, they head for the post office where Neal has a box. He'll need to switch everything to a new address at June's, but the PO box has always been separate from his apartment. He set it up after Kate went to jail, as a just in case method of staying in touch with her. Even Mozzie doesn't know about it.

Neal doesn't expect anything to be there. Nothing ever has been. Kate's letters from Danbury always came to his apartment. It's still habit to check it though. He'll abandon it after this, since he's led Jones to it.

The cheap envelope addressed to him and lying in the box makes Neal freeze.

"Everything okay, Caffrey?" Jones asks from just behind him.

His heart beats so hard he feels it in his wrists and his throat.

Reaching out, Neal's hand stays steady. Touch tells him there isn't much in the envelope, nothing more than two sheets of paper. There's no return address, of course, just his name and the PO box number scrawled hurriedly in Kate's familiar hand.

"Yeah," Neal replies unthinkingly. He shoves the envelope inside his coat. "Let's get back." 

~*~

His key turns to water and drips through his fingers onto the floor in brass colored droplets that sizzle when they hit. Neal shakes his hand and stares at the palm, finding a perfect burn on his palm in the intricate shape of a skeleton key.

The door to the apartment opens for him when he presses his palm flat to it. Empty white space stretches in every direction, so bright he can't see. He catches the door jamb on either side and holds on to keep from pitching forward. His left little finger snaps again, bone breaking with a gunfire bang.

His fingers clutch at the edges of the doorway, sinking right through the dissolving material and he's falling, reaching out desperately to catch at anything. He falls into the light only to find himself standing on the bare, wooden floor of his apartment.

Neal stays still but the apartment revolves around him. Everything is gone. Everything. There is just the floor and the white walls and the bare windows letting in the bloody sunset.

He shuffles forward, afraid, looking for any sign he was ever here. His heart pounds harder and harder and he stretches his hands out as if he'll feel something he can't see.

His feet slip and he looks down. The crimson light from the windows is pooling on the floor, darkening into blood. He's standing in Kate's blood and it's spreading across the floor in a flood because there's nothing to stop it, not his things, not his paintings, not his hands because they can't hold on to anything.

Neal opens his mouth when the warm tide rises high enough, swallows, and drowns.

He jerks awake gasping for breath, still reaching for anything to hold onto, and remembers he's sleeping on Burke's couch again, because Neal's the FBI's only link to a dirty agent and that means he's in danger. His heart hammers in his chest and he fists the thin blanket in his hands.

"Damn it." 

Neal bends his knees up and leans his forehead into them. Every night his brain subjects him to a new nightmare. This one amalgamates knowing Kate died in his apartment with the shock of walking into his apartment after his last visit to Kate and finding all his paintings ‒ and everything else ‒ gone.

He wonders what happened to the paintings. All the rest, that's just things, but the paintings are all pieces of him. Not knowing keeps him scraped raw inside, along with everything else.

Desperate for a distraction, he fishes Kate's letter from his sketchbook ‒ he's kept it there since he's fairly certain Burke isn't going to page through it when he's not looking ‒ and pulls the sheets of cheap paper out to read again. It's too dark to see the words, but in the end he doesn't need to see. He just wants to touch something she touched. 

~*~

Diana slaps the file down on Peter's desk like it has personally offended her. She gives Neal a skeptical look in the next second, telegraphing that whatever's in it is something she doesn't think he should hear. Neal keeps his head down, watching through his lashes, scraping his pencil over his sketchbook randomly, and listens.

She braces one hand on Peter's desk and leans close. Her voice is lowered, but Neal makes it out anyway.

"The second ballistics report you ordered came back. The slug's a match for a service weapon registered to an agent with OPR." 

Burke's "Damn it," is equally quiet, but intense enough Neal nearly twitches. He searches his memory, trying to identify the acronym. OPR, OPR... Office of... He has a good memory and Mozzie has ranted about nearly every branch of the government at one time or another. It comes to him. Office of Professional Responsibility, the FBI's answer to Internal Affairs.

Every agent eventually takes a turn with them if they want to move up in the organization.

"He hasn't showed up here," Peter says quietly.

"No," Diana agrees. "There are no OPR investigations running on anyone in the New York office and he hasn't tapped any agents here to look at anyone else." 

"We're between inspections." Burke flips open the file and stares at the contents. Neal stops pretending he's still sketching. "Hard to miss when the rent-a-goons move in for a month." 

Diana straightens up, crossing her arms in front of her instead, and frowns. "Rogue," she murmurs.

"Neal," Burke says.

Neal lifts his head. He keeps his expression calm. Hopes Burke doesn't see his pulse beating fast at his neck. Kate always said to watch for that. He can only speculate if the FBI trains their agents to look for the same kind of tells. It occurs to him that he's thought about and used the things Kate would tell him more in the last few days than he ever did while he was with her. He can't decide whether he should be sad or proud.

"Come here." 

He sets the sketchbook aside and rises from the spot he's made his along with Burke's office visitor's chair. "What?" 

Burke pulls a color photo free of a paper clip and holds it out. "Take a look." 

Neal glances at the face front identification picture. He feels sick for a second, sweat prickling under his arms and on his upper lip. The buzzcut hair, the pale eyes, the sneer... they're all there and he'll always associate them with agony and helplessness. "Yeah," he chokes out, just controlling the urge to step back. His good hand goes to his splinted finger. "That's Fowler." 

"Garrett Fowler," Burke confirms the whole name as he places the picture back in the personnel file. "This is going to get dirty." 

Diana sneers. "It already is. He's a murderer." 

Neal stays stock still while wondering how far Burke will go for him if it means taking down another FBI agent. He knows Burke has been counting on Fowler being an imposter. Maybe he should start worrying over how far _Agent_ Burke will go to protect the Bureau.

Burke slaps his hand down on the file. Neal and Diana both jump. His face is set, grim and hard with anger. "Find him. Then I'll bring him in myself." He shoves his desk chair back and surges to his feet. When Diana doesn't move immediately, he glares at her. "Now. I've got to brief Hughes." 

"You're going to arrest him?" Neal asks.

The glare switches to Neal, but finally softens. "Yes I am." 

Neal finally relaxes and takes a silent, deep breath.

"Do you believe me?" Burke asks.

"Sure." 

"No, do you believe me?" Burke insists.

Neal meets his eyes. "Yes, I believe you," he says. The irony hits him a second later. He told Kate he loved her. He never said he believed her. But he believes in Peter Burke. 

~*~

He's still in the office five hours later when Burke, Jones, and Diana return, walking Garrett Fowler through the White Collar office, hands cuffed behind him. Jones has one big hand curled around Fowler's arm, steering him between the desks, then up the stairs.

Neal stands at the glass wall of the office and waits until Fowler's gaze catches on him to lift his hand, the one with the splinted finger, and give him a slow wave. Fowler's shoulders stiffen and his step stutters. His head turns to keep staring back at Neal.

Neal smiles at him.

Burke's walking behind Fowler and gives Neal a look that says stop taunting Fowler, before giving Fowler a little push.

The angle's wrong, but Neal memorized everything in the White Collar office, so he knows Fowler's either being taken to Hughes' office or the conference room. He'd lay money on it being the conference room, even if Hughes means to talk to the rogue agent at some point. The handcuffs on Fowler's wrists are for humiliation as much as restraint. He won't get the courtesy of an office visit after that parade through the office.

Neal thinks maybe Burke did that for him. A wave of satisfaction and gratitude crashes through him.

The satisfaction doesn't last long enough to savor, because the truth hits Neal in the gut: so Fowler's in custody. Even if Burke puts him away, Kate's still dead.

He drops back into the chair he's made his own and bends over, trying to breathe through the brutal truth, hands threading through his hair and tugging at it, fighting tears again.

Kate's still dead. 

~*~

Neal slides his way out of the White Collar office in the aftermath of Fowler's arrest. He figures it's safe enough, even if Fowler isn't in it by himself, his partner or boss will need to replace him before doing anything new.

He needs to get away from Special Agent Burke for a while. It's been a week and Neal hasn't been out of Burke's control since leaving Premier Events' premises. It's stifling him. Except for Mozzie, Neal's not used to anyone looking out for him. He's relies on himself. Half an hour in the open air, not answering to anyone, just moving, feels necessary. Plus he really needs to talk to Moz about Kate's letter.

As soon as he can, Neal finds a shop selling phones and buys a burner, using it to call one of Mozzie's numbers and leave a short, enigmatic message. Mozzie will decode it and meet Neal in the park. From there, they can slip off to either the studio loft or one of Mozzie's safehouses and talk in peace.

He really wants to get back to the studio. There's an itch Neal gets under his skin, when he hasn't had a chance to paint for a while. It's like withdrawal, he imagines.

He makes the call and heads for the park bench Mozzie specifies. Once there, he tips his face up to the sun for a moment, searching inside himself for some quiet. Seeing Fowler in cuffs helps, but the hole where Kate filled his life still gapes open inside him. The sounds of birds, of people passing by immersed in their own lives, the city sounds of traffic and sirens, HVACs and helicopters, along with the endless mutter and murmur of a million voices settles through Neal, grounding him again. New York is home, it's why he always came back when Kate left, and the city, the streets and people, still inspire and console him somehow.

He takes out Kate's letter and reads it again. The first page is a stilted note, though written in Kate's gorgeous cursive. Kate loved the classics: there's a clue in her words, something only Neal will recognize. The second sheet of paper is filled from top to bottom, side to side, with numbers, symbols, and letters, no stops, spaces or punctuation to make decoding it easier.

Neal studies both sides of each sheet of paper, then the edges, then puts them to his nose, trying to find any scent. Nothing stands out. He needs to remember Kate had very little time between breaking out and sending the letter before going on to his apartment. Whatever she did, it won't be very elaborate. The answer must lie in the note.

"Ah, there you are," Mozzie says, startling Neal into looking up from the two pages. "Didn't I say the south side?" 

"No, you said the east side." 

"So you came to the north side." 

Neal smiles at him. "One to the left, just like always." 

Mozzie beams in satisfaction. "Just in case." 

"I don't think the burner I bought ten minutes before was bugged." 

"You've been in the hands of the Suits, mon frère," Mozzie says. "I should sweep you for bugs. You don't have any missing time, do you?" He peers at Neal in concern. "They could have implanted you with ‒ " 

Laughter, a little awkward and brittle, is the only response available to Neal. "Mozzie, I swear, I haven't been implanted with anything." He doesn't mention missing time is more often a symptom of disassociative identity disorders. Mozzie would not be pleased and Neal's in no mood to listen to a lecture on modern psychology, if he was lucky enough that Mozzie didn't ask why Neal knew that in the first place.

"So you say." 

Neal holds up the two pages in his hand. "Kate sent this before she was killed." 

Mozzie plucks both sheets away, reminding Neal his friend is a superb pickpocket: those hands are fast. The letter is gone before Neal can tighten his grip. Just as well, if he had, the paper might have torn.

"Printed," Mozzie states of the second page.

"I noticed." 

"Of course you did." 

They'll take the letter to one of Mozzie's safehouses and examine it under several different kinds of light, but for now, the sunny afternoon light is good enough. Mozzie angles the first page one way, then the other, looking for impressions with another message. Neal already thought of that and has looked, but he bites his tongue. This is Mozzie's game.

"No time for invisible ink, no lemon or urine ‒ " Mozzie mutters. Neal wrinkles his nose in disgust. Yuck. Some of Mozzie's ideas are just disgusting. Mozzie notices his face, of course. " ‒ Don't be so prissy, Neal. Carmine." 

Neal shakes off a shudder. Mozzie's lectures on disgusting and weird food ingredients once went on a tangent that included the origin of carmine with the cochineal beetle. He's never looked at anything red, from lipstick to cherry candy, the same way since. Forget Jell-O shots. Mozzie can turn a Texan vegan.

Neal insists, "Kate did not use pee to write a secret message." 

After a pause in which he's obviously thinking about it, Mozzie goes on, tacitly accepting Neal is right. "So it's in the words. Something only you would know."

> _'Adios, Neal. You'll always be my favorite artist, but we're quits. A con has to know hwen to fold a bad hand. Accept no substitutes, because it's been real, but don't look for me. No more poetry in Rome. I'm gone. Kate'_

Mozzie looks at Neal expectantly.

"What?" Neal demands.

"Come on, Neal." Mozzie snaps his fingers with one hand and pushes the papers at Neal with the other. "Figure it out. What stands out?" 

Mozzie's giving him a headache, Neal wants to snipe, that's what stands out. He scowls at the horrible note again. So, cards... Kate counted cards and read the players. She knew when to walk away from the game, too. "I don't know. Some kind of poker metaphor? A bluff?" 

"No, no, no," Mozzie insists. "Read it again. Think. Something only you and Kate knew." 

"We had a joke," Neal murmurs finally.

"Good. A private joke." 

"Favorite artist, favorite poet, both Byrons." It's a coincidence, but the irony that he's now going to live in a loft and studio that belonged to Byron Ellington doesn't escape Neal. Kate would have loved that. He stares at the note again, picking the words apart, sorting the red herrings from the private language of lovers.

Every sentence holds something, whether misdirection meant to send hunters chasing off to Mexico or Italy, or to point Neal at something. To... All roads lead to Rome, of course. Neal presses his fingertips to his closed eyelids and fights tears.

Drunk on beauty and Kate and love, he recited poetry to her on the Spanish Steps.

"It's a substitution code," he states when he's back in control, "using She Walks In Beauty." 

Mozzie snags his arm and pulls Neal to his feet. "Let's go find out what Kate really said." 

It isn't as easy as that. Neal knows he shouldn't have thought it would be. They figure out the substitution code relatively easily - it lacks a Z, but is simple otherwise, replacing the letters of the alphabet with the letters of the poem, skipping forward through it when letters repeat. It just doesn't work.

Mozzie sips wine sulkily and glares at the pages of work they've done only to end up with gibberish. "What are we missing?" 

Maybe it's the wine, but Neal thinks Peter could figure it out. Peter knows how Kate thought. He wants to slap himself the next second. He plucks up the letter and absently folds it, then stares when the folds don't result in a envelope-sized missive. He unfolds the sheet of paper and examines it again.

"Oh," he blurts, grinning blindly, because now it is obvious.

"What?" Mozzie abandons his wine and sits forward eagerly.

Fold. Fold is the clue.

Neal holds up the note. It came in the letter-sized envelope, folded in thirds, but the paper was folded in another shape before that. Those are the creases his fingers followed just now. It doesn't result in a new message suddenly appearing, but that's okay.

The second sheet of paper, the one filled with gibberish? It was only folded once, to fit in the envelope.

Neal picks it up and folds it to match the first sheet. Then he begins transcribing the letters into Kate's substitution code. This time it results in a series of addresses, the numbers written out: storage spaces around the world. Then the list switches to banks, accounts, safety deposit boxes and the passwords to access them using the name Nick Halden.

He stares at them once he's finished. "What do you think?" Neal asks blankly. He could guess, but he's afraid. Kate would never give everything up.

Mozzie's eyes have gone wide behind his glasses. "Neal..." 

"What?" 

"Those are Kate's caches." 

Neal jerks his head up and he gapes at Mozzie. The only thing Kate ever gave him was an incredibly ugly music box that she sent him a month before she showed up back in his life the first time.

"I know, it's hard to believe," Mozzie mutters, "but it has to be. Maybe she thought you'd need them, in case ‒ " 

"In case Fowler got to her?" Neal finishes.

Mozzie nods.

Neal snatches up the bottle and sloshes wine into his glass and then Mozzie's. Mozzie doesn't even complain about the careless treatment of a fine vintage. Instead, he lifts his glass and declares, "To Kate the Great." 

Neal drains his glass without a word. 

~*~

The light knock on his door brings Peter's head up from the endless paperwork involved with arresting another law enforcement professional. Fowler's role in OPR just makes the case more difficult. He has to get everything exactly right. Legal's lawyers will be going over every single piece of paper generated by the case with a fine tooth comb before it goes to the US Attorney's office and the courts. His work laptop provides its own illumination, but it is late enough he's just switched on his desk lamp so he can go over the print-outs again. The warm pool of light is familiar as the one in his apartment kitchen ‒ more ‒ after years of working late hours in his office.

It's late and he's trying not to let his irritation at Neal build into real anger. Peter doesn't own him. No, Neal shouldn't have disappeared the way he did, but he's not under arrest or even suspected of anything. If he wants to forgo the Bureau's protection and Peter's company, that's Neal's prerogative.

It doesn't stop worry churning Peter's stomach into a sick froth. He doesn't think Fowler's the real mover and shaker in this case. Fowler has no ties to Kate Moreau and, as far as Peter can discern so far, never accessed her file to find out about Neal. Someone else is out there. He can only hope Neal either goes to the loft or shows up at his apartment eventually. Somewhere safe.

Whoever that someone else is, they haven't found Neal yet. He's standing in the open doorway to Peter's office, cool and collected, brows arched in a silent request that Peter invite him in, waiting.

Peter narrows his eyes. Neal widens his in response, all mock innocence.

Giving in, Peter grumbles, "Get in here." 

Neal practically bounces into the office, making Peter wonder if he went out and got drunk. Is Neal a happy drunk? Peter has no idea. He'd have pegged Neal as the sort to get very quiet, though he couldn't really say why. He'd actually like to find out. Maybe Neal's the sort who sings. The thought makes Peter smile to himself.

"So where'd you go?" he asks.

Neal shifts uncomfortably, then pulls a sheet of paper from inside his jacket. "I needed to talk to a friend of mine." He fidgets with the paper. Too little light is left from the sunset to make out anything on it from where Peter sits.

"You couldn't do that from here?" 

That makes Neal laugh. "Mozzie's not a fan of law enforcement. Or, well, anyone in authority." 

"Someone you met through Kate?" Peter struggles to keep his voice level, despite thinking that the real author of Kate's demise is no doubt from her milieu. This Mozzie could easily have been the guilty party.

Neal shrugs. "He looked out for me after she left. I was staying with him ‒ I needed to let him know I'm okay." 

"May I suggest that is what the telephone is for?" 

"I needed him to look at something for me too." 

It's Peter's turn to raise his eyebrows. "And?" 

Neal holds out the sheet of paper. He doesn't actually cross the distance between the door and Peter's desk, instead he lingers in the doorway, unconsciously telegraphing that he's conflicted over handing it over. "Kate sent me a list." 

"What kind of list?" Peter's heart begins to pound at the prospect. A list of names, maybe, enemies, people she conned? People who might have killed her out of revenge or going after everything she had hidden? 

"Mozzie thinks it's of her caches." 

Would Kate do that? Would she have trusted that information to Neal? Peter can't help doubting it.

Having said it, Neal walks forward and lays the hand-written list down on top of the reports on Fowler's arrest. A glance down shows Peter the writing is Neal's.

"Is there some way to find out?" Peter asks. He wants to ask where the original is, but knows it will only come out as an accusation. Nothing made Neal share the existence of the list after all.

Neal relaxes minutely. "We could check one of them out." He nods to the list. "Several are here." 

Peter checks and sees it's true. "If by here you meant the five boroughs." 

"You're federal," Neal points out with glee. "Special Agent Burke." 

"That's right," Peter agrees, "and I have my own list." He waits a beat. "Of everything Kate was ever suspected of stealing." 

Neal frowns at the list. "You think something on that list is 'it'?" 

"Don't you?" 

Neal's frown deepens before he answers, "No." He perches a hip on Peter's desk, bent over, half his face in shadow, one hand spread flat on the desk. The light catches on his late day beard coming in. Peter blinks and makes himself look away from the line of Neal's jaw and neck, abruptly flushed and aware of his own skin, his body, and how close they both are. Neal side-eyes him and asks, "So, up for a treasure hunt tomorrow?" 

"Not without back-up and not without clearing it with my boss." 

"Fuddy-duddy." 

Peter shakes his head, unable to take offense. "C'mon, Wild Child, you can crash on my couch again. We'll get crazy and order Chinese." 

"I've got a place to live now," Neal points out. He isn't refusing to come with Peter though. "You arrested Fowler. Don't you think it's safe?" 

Peter just looks at him.

Neal holds up both hands. "Fine, Agent Burke. I can endure your couch of torture one more night. But I know, you just want to be sure I'm not off checking out the list tonight without you." His bright smile takes the sting from the words, making it clear he has no real objection to spending more time with Peter. 

"That's it exactly," Peter lies, because it's as good an excuse as any to put in whatever report he ends up having to write. The truth is a mixture of worry for Neal and wanting his company in Peter's otherwise empty and unwelcoming apartment. "But since you're sleeping at my place again, you may as well start calling me Peter." 

Neal cocks his head and appears to consider it seriously before agreeing. "Okay. Peter. But I pick whatever we have for dinner." 

~*~

Sometime after eating enough Chinese to encourage both a letting out of a belt hole and renewed visits to the Bureau gym, Peter glances over to the couch from watching the baseball game and is entranced. Knees bent, sketchbook propped against them, Neal strokes a piece of charcoal over the paper. There's a smear of it on one cheekbone, dark as a bruise but innocent, and he needs a shave. He flicks a wave of hair out of his eyes absently, intent enough on his drawing he hasn't registered Peter's regard.

Peter watches him instead of the rest of the game, only half registering the announcers, his attention tunneling so that he hears the soft scrape of the charcoal over the paper, and the creaky springs in the couch when Neal shifts. An absent frown goes with the stretch of one leg, as if Neal has a cramp, but he never looks up.

He can't escape the comparison. How many evenings did he watch El sit on the couch ‒ a different one ‒ working at her laptop, while he pretended fascination with baseball? 

It's easy to trace the elegant lines of Neal's body with his gaze, as easy as it was to look at Elizabeth. If he cups his palm to Neal's cheek, stubble will prickle his skin instead of El's velvet skin, but Neal might still turn his face into a caress the same way. Neal is bone and taut muscle, long lean lines, almost adolescently angular, where El is plush curves, matured into the strength of femininity; Peter appreciates the beauty of both. He wants to test himself against Neal's body the way he sank into Elizabeth's embraces. He wants to wrap himself around Neal until Neal gives way to him.

Oh, God damn it to hell, he _wants_ Neal.

"Do I have something on my face?" Neal asks.

It startles Peter badly. Neal doesn't even look up, still working, and Peter hopes that means he hasn't seen any of what Peter's just been thinking reflected in his expression. He quickly schools his face into something less open. "You've got a smear." 

"Oh. Yeah, I forget and get charcoal everywhere," Neal comments, still more focused on his sketch than Peter, amusement at himself lightening his face though. "Where?" 

"Cheekbone. Your left." 

Neal rubs his cheek but doesn't manage to get the smear. Peter's fingers tingle with the desire to smudge it away himself. He looks away and winces as the TV shows him his team committing an unforced error.

"Am I bugging you?" Neal asks. The sound of the charcoal stops.

"You're aren't even talking," Peter points out.

"Well, I am now." 

He likes that wry humor. Something occurs to him and he turns back to Neal, asking without thinking, "Did you do this with Kate?" 

Someone should kick him, Peter realizes immediately when Neal's eyes darken and his calm tightens into a polite mask. "Yeah, we did. She'd read a book or a magazine while I worked. She liked that we could just be in the same room and not need to talk." 

Neal sets the charcoal aside and folds the sketchbook closed. He looks fine as he does it, but even Peter knows charcoal will smear like that without fixative. The blast of lust that hit him subsides into regret. Neal's mourning; reminding him of another facet of the life he lost falls into the category of unnecessary cruelty.

"Sorry," he offers.

"Not a problem," Neal replies with a small, strained smile. "Actually, do you mind if I get a shower now?" 

"No, go ahead. The game's ‒ " Peter glances at the TV again and sighs, " ‒ over. I'll set up the couch. Unless you want the bed tonight? I can take the couch." 

"Couch is fine. Better than Mo ‒ than some. Anyway, it's too short for you. You'd be a pretzel in the morning." Probably true. Peter chose the couch at random when he moved; it isn't made for sleeping. Neal isn't that much shorter than him, though. It's probably torturing him too, but he hasn't complained.

Neal leaves the sketchbook on the side table and retrieves the bag with his clothes from where he stashed it in a corner. Neal's a neat house guest; he leaves nothing out, doesn't move anything of Peter's, and when he goes, there will be no trace of him except fingerprints. It wouldn't surprise Peter if he wiped those down too. Neal learned a lot from Kate and some things become habit.

Kate's fingerprints are all over Neal; nothing will ever wipe them all away and nothing will ever make Neal as careless and mercenary as she was either.

It takes more willpower than it should to rein in the impulse to open Neal's sketchbook and find out what he'd been drawing.

He likes Neal, that's the part that makes this harder than it has to be. It's not right to want to tumble him into bed when he's grieving and Peter still longs for Elizabeth. He needs to keep this thing he has to himself, for the good of all the parties involved. Once Kate's killer is found and Neal is out of his apartment, it'll go away. It's just proximity. Well, proximity and an easy, inexplicable connection, in addition to Neal's undeniable attractiveness.

Neal's smart too, and Peter has always liked smart.

He levers himself out of his recliner and begins fixing the couch for Neal. The best thing he can do is get himself back to the bedroom and leave Neal to try and sleep.

Peter pauses with the sheets in his hands. Neal sleeps a lot and he wonders if he should worry about it. Maybe not. The kid's still recovering from a beating, exhausted and stressed, hurting over Kate. Sleep's likely the only escape he has and if he sleeps a lot around Peter, it probably just means he feels safe enough to do so. Thinking that makes Peter feel a little better.

He's getting rid of his empty beer can and making sure no food's been left out when Neal pads back into the living room.

The empty aluminum can in Peter's hand crumples.

Neal is bare foot and bare chested, a pair of loose, dark blue sleep pants riding low on his narrow hips. His hair is still damp and curling and a trickle of water is running from the nape of his neck down the line of his spine. He shaved in the shower. The reading lamp next to the couch colors his smooth skin into something warm and touchable.

Peter's pulse jumps at the thought. Jesus, Jesus, he needs to get a grip. He needs to get laid and not with this vulnerable man, because even if Neal feels an attraction in return, he isn't in a place to return Peter's interest. He closes his eyes for a moment to marshal some damned control. He's not going to act like some kind of sexual predator. Neal doesn't need this from him. He needs a friend and, some day, he'll need someone to care about him the way he deserves, not just to get his rocks off. That won't be Peter, because he is still in love with El.

Thankfully, that calms his body down enough so he won't embarrass himself or Neal before Neal notices him looking again.

He sees Neal check the sketchbook and breathes out a silent sigh of relief he didn't touch it. Even if it wasn't a test, Neal notices things. If Peter had touched it, Neal would see.

"Thanks, Peter," Neal murmurs.

"Not a problem," Peter tells him. His throat's so dry he sounds hoarse and Neal glances at him, curious and bright. Peter holds up the can and crumples it a little more before dropping it into the garbage. "If you need something, I'll probably be awake a while longer." 

"I'm chasing you out of your own living room." 

"Reading case files in bed is a bad habit that predates you by a decade." 

"Elizabeth didn't mind?" 

"Nah." Did she? Peter thinks now maybe she did, but she never complained. The only time she ever spoke up was over Kate's case. Shit. He should punch himself. He corrects himself. "She never said so, anyway." 

Neal's observing him with slightly raised brows.

Peter gives him a weak smile in return. "Yeah. No one ever said I was emotionally aware." Frankly, he wishes he was a little more oblivious right now. 

~*~

Neal doesn't sleep. It isn't Peter's horrible couch or excitement over visiting one of Kate's caches and maybe finding the mysterious item she was killed to recover. It's Peter.

If Peter had opened Neal's sketchbook he would have found drawing after drawing of him. Sketching him, whether in charcoal or pencil or even a ball-point doodle on a lined yellow legal pad is becoming a habit. Habit sounds better than obsession, though Neal thinks that would be the word Mozzie would use.

Mozzie's not getting a chance to look in his sketchbook.

He doesn't sleep because he's betraying Kate. He's giving everything she left to him back to the FBI. To Peter, but it amounts to the same thing in the end. He knows Kate never meant for Neal to do that, whatever she did mean when she sent him the coded list.

Mozzie may not be speaking to him, so the sketchbook thing is moot, because Mozzie disapproves of giving anything back and made it loudly clear before Neal left to go back to the Federal Building.

He pulls his knees up and wraps his arms around them. He's hyper aware of the blanket tangled around his shins, the coarse weave of the upholstery on the cushions under him, even the catch and slide of the loose pants he's wearing. His broken finger aches in time with his pulse. The Chinese food from earlier lies uneasily in his stomach. Maybe it's guilt. He imagines Kate's disappointed look. You're dead, you don't get a vote, he tells her shade sulkily. He regrets it immediately. He doesn't want to let go of any connection he still has to her.

"I'm sorry," he whispers in the quiet darkness of Peter's living room, "I'm sorry, I miss you. I miss you." 

He wishes he'd just jerked off in the shower earlier. He hasn't since Kate died, hasn't wanted to until he found himself watching Peter sidelong, and doesn't want to think about what that means. He meant to when he stepped into the shower, meant to pretend the hot water running over his skin was Kate's hands, but hadn't been able to think of her without remembering she's dead. It felt too weird, anyway, in Peter's bathroom, in Peter's shower. Now his skin's too tight, he's still restless, and it feels like sticking his hands down his pants would be even more awkward. Like if he did, he'd start thinking about Peter, and he's not going to let himself do that to Kate's memory.

He likes Peter too much. Maybe it's missing Kate. Peter's the first ‒ the only ‒ person who seems to understand how much Neal loved her. Even Mozzie told him to write her off more than once, though not after she went to Danbury. No one else even knew Kate, not the real Kate. So maybe he's just transferring something to Peter. Maybe it's gratitude because Peter is helping him or because Peter wants to find Kate's killer too.

His head is a whirlpool of confused feelings. He really needs to get into the studio where he can paint again. Nothing else helps him get his thoughts straight.

Neal's still awake and exhausted when Peter comes out of the bedroom hours later. He nods when Peter looks at him sharply and asks, "Bad night?" 

Neal shrugs and Peter makes a face that's sympathy and acceptance before making his way to the bathroom. They trade off wordlessly and when Neal exits, showered and shaved, Peter's on the phone, leaving a message about a lunch meeting for Elizabeth, ending with a quiet, "Love you, hon," that makes Neal look away with a wince.

"You still feel that way about her?" Neal hears himself ask, though he knows he shouldn't. Peter will probably tell him it's none of his business.

"I haven't given up on getting her back," Peter answers. "I never will." 

"You love her that much." It's not a question because Neal can read it from Peter's face and hear it in his voice. There isn't a picture of Elizabeth in Peter's office, but there is one taped to the apartment refrigerator, and Peter's still wearing his wedding ring.

Peter scrubs his hand over his face and sighs. "I do. I miss her every day. I screwed up, but I'm going to make it right." 

Neal closes his eyes and doesn't say how much he misses Kate or that at least Elizabeth is alive. He'd trade never spending another day with Kate if it would buy her life. For just a second, he hates Peter for wasting what he'd had with his wife, though Neal never resented him for chasing Kate and him both for so long. He doesn't ask what Peter will do if Elizabeth won't ever have him back. That's treading ground too dangerous for him right now.

Peter doesn't push Neal to talk anymore through his breakfast preparations or after they're both on the way back to the Federal Building. He's distracted too, only paying attention when Neal starts playing with the GPS, batting Neal's hand away.

Neal sits back in his seat and calls himself an idiot. He doesn't give a damn about the GPS; that was all about getting Peter's attention by irritating him. If Peter had pigtails, Neal would be pulling them.

He resists the urge to beat his forehead against the dashboard and puts on a smiling front by the time they step out of the elevator onto the twenty-first floor.

"Hughes needs to see you," Diana tells Peter the minute they come through the doors, so Neal sticks with her while Peter heads upstairs. He watches Peter go until he disappears into Hughes' office before turning his attention back to Diana.

Who is watching Neal with more sympathy in her gaze than he's comfortable seeing. "What?" 

"I hope you know what you're doing." 

Neal wants to protest he isn't doing anything, but settles for wiping his hand over his face. "Do you ‒ what's going on?" The bullpen is quieter than it's been before, an uneasy vibe coming off the agents at their desks.

"Garrett Fowler was found dead in his cell this morning." 

Neal grabs the back of a chair and holds on.

"It looks like suicide," Diana adds.

"Looks?" Neal repeats in a shaking voice.

"Fowler didn't strike me as the type to slit his wrists under a blanket." 

"No," Neal agrees, Fowler didn't seem like the suicide type to him either.

"Lucky you've got a great alibi," Diana tells him.

"Yeah, good for me." Neal rubs at the ache forming between his eyes. "Lucky." 

~*~

In spite of Peter's avowal to bring along back-up and witnesses to check out the addresses Kate sent Neal, Hughes vetoes the plan. They don't know that they'll find anything there, but Hughes wants to keep the possibility quiet. Peter almost objects, he doesn't care if some other agency muscles in on the credit, but then Hughes punctures his balloon of self-righteousness with just one sentence.

"You want every cop and agent out there crawling all over Caffrey?" 

Peter damned well doesn't. Not even with Fowler dead, because where there's one corrupt agent, there could easily be more.

"Go on," Hughes says. "I know you've got him stashed in your office. Go out, get some lunch, take your time, take a drive. Come back when you know something." 

"Yes sir," Peter agrees.

He gestures to Neal through the glass walls of the office to join him and they end up eating in the park, watching people and enjoying the sun. Neal amuses them both by making up stories about anyone interesting they see. Peter's impressed by just how observant Neal is; he sees things most people would miss, even cops or agents. Neal's romantic, though, despite his experiences, and imagines happy endings for each of his subjects. It makes Peter feel old and cynical.

"We should do this again," Neal says after they've finished, then flicks a glance at Peter, giving away that he hadn't planned to say that.

"As long as it's not raining or snowing or sleeting," Peter agrees easily. He crumples the wrapper to his gyro into a ball and lofts it into a garbage can one handed. He grins in triumph. "Three points." 

"Basketball?" Neal asks. He's as curious as a cat sometimes, quizzing Peter about things in the apartment without a hint of self-consciousness. His interest feeds Peter's ego more than a little. With Neal's attention zeroed in on him, the sense he's had the last few years of being worn out and just another boring fed dissolves. Neal's company fills him with the same fizzing excitement chasing Kate did, except Neal's almost his partner in this and not an opponent, which makes it better. He's always preferred team play to solitary pursuits.

"Baseball was my game," Peter says. "You?" 

Neal pauses long enough Peter thinks he won't answer at all. He tosses his trash in the bin as accurately as Peter did, without remarking on it, his brows draw together a little. "Gymnastics." The look he angles Peter's way tells an unspoken story. Artistic kid, pretty face, gymnastics as a sport... Neal probably doesn't look back on his high school years with anything like the fondness Peter has for his memories of that age.

When Peter doesn't make a comment, Neal nods once. "So, neither snow nor sleet nor rain ‒ " 

"That is the postal service," Peter snaps in mock irritation. He's busy hiding just how pleased he is over the small piece of personal history Neal just showed him. It seems important; Peter doesn't bother examining why. "Do I look like a mailman?" 

Neal grins at him. "Do you want me to answer that?" He cocks his head. "You'd probably rock the summer uniform shorts ‒ " 

Peter grabs Neal's arm and hustles him out of the park, ignoring the peal of laughter that gets away from Neal and trying mightily to frown.

"Come on. With any luck, we can check out that Staten Island address and get back in time to watch the game tonight." 

Neal makes a face that he must not think Peter sees. "There's always a game," he mutters.

"Yup. I bet I can find one on the radio in the car too." 

"You suck." 

"I'll explain all the fine points ‒ " 

"I know how baseball's played," Neal objects, "I just don't like it." 

"Heathen. It's the national past time." 

"It's grown men scratching and chewing tobacco like cud," Neal fires back.

Oh, now he's done it. Peter lectures Neal on baseball through the whole drive to Staten Island. Neal complains the entire way, but never once loses focus the way he does when he's reminded of Kate somehow, so Peter counts it as a win. He doesn't reach over and pat Neal's knee or his shoulder those times, but the impulse is there, to touch and comfort, the same way he would if it were El hurting.

It's the reminder of El, of everything he still wants to try to salvage with her, that stops Peter from reaching out for Neal. 

~*~

Neal grins every time Peter makes a remark about Kate hiding a goodly portion of her ill-gotten gains on Staten Island.

"Half the cops in Manhattan live out here!" 

"So it should be extra safe," Neal agrees.

Peter throws up his hands before succumbing to laughter. "I can't believe this," he mutters, looking around the extra large space Kate paid to have for ten years. Climate controlled, but with vehicle access, and Neal got to show off the lock-picking skills Mozzie taught him while Peter stood by with his badge on display hooked to his belt.

"You're too good at that." 

"It's fun." 

"Fun like that will get you in jail." 

"Not if I'm doing it for the Feds," Neal teases.

They lift open the door far enough to let some light in and a battery light on a motion sensor comes on. Kate paid for one of the extra large spaces. Peter sucks in a shocked breath. "Son of a ‒ " 

Neal looks around and says, "Well, everything is in order. It shouldn't be too hard to do an inventory." The space is filled from back to front, top to bottom, but it's all organized.

Peter eyes him sardonically. "You realize I can see three different stolen items from here already?" 

Neal can only shrug. "Kate didn't send a list of the contents." 

"No idea she had all this here?" 

"I met her for dinner at a diner a couple of miles away back in... " Neal frowns, trying to pin down the date of the memory, "2005. March. But I never came here with her. I didn't know about any of her caches before." Sorrow settles over him. "She knew they were going to kill her." She wouldn't have sent him the list otherwise.

Peter laughs, making Neal flinch. "The International Traveling Art Nouveau Exhibit. A Frances MacDonald-McNair, two Moreaus, and a Klinger disappeared over night between New York and DC." 

Kate ran more than one con claiming to be a descendent of an artist, but never Gustave Moreau, even though, "She loved Moreau's work." She loved Art Nouveau in all its incarnations, dragged a happy Neal through Barcelona to admire Gaudi's architecture, even kept an apartment there in one of his buildings, though it sweltered in summer and froze all winter. He wonders if the apartment is empty now or if someone else is as happy there as they were. Or maybe Keller took it over. Neal hates that thought and pushes it deep, along with every other Keller memory.

"So they're probably here? That theft nearly caused an international incident." 

Neal shrugs one shoulder. He doesn't care. Grief is a knife twisting in his heart again. Keller ripped away Neal's last illusions, the ones he held onto even after Adler. He wants to turn around and leave behind all these reminders of the things Kate considered more important than being with him, especially anything that reminds him of Barcelona. "I guess we'll find out." 

Maybe his voice gives him away. Peter gives Neal a sympathetic look and kindly pushes him forward with a big hand placed right at the small of Neal's back. That touch makes Neal shudder with abrupt awareness. He almost trips, then half turns to look at Peter in shock. Peter's hand is still there, still steadying him and throwing all of Neal's reactions off at the same time.

He blurts without thinking, "This is a bad idea." 

"What do you mean?" Peter asks quietly.

Neal makes himself breath in and out slowly, briefly covers his eyes with one hand, before straightening his shoulders. The words trip out, undesigned and only half true, because he doesn't want Peter to know how his body is reacting to Peter's nearness. "Me, here, this, I can't ‒ Kate." 

Peter brings his hand up and squeezes Neal's shoulder gently. "You can do this." 

"I don't know," Neal murmurs honestly.

The Past Cannot Sustain Us

He's been watching Caffrey for three months, so maybe it isn't that strange that instead of following Kate out to booking and interview and all the inevitable paperwork that will accompany his triumph, Peter lingers in the apartment. Caffrey doesn't move; his eyes are cast down again, his hands cupping his elbows.

Peter expects yelling and anger at most busts. Caffrey just looks weary to death.

He shuffles his feet. They'll have to search the apartment; it's standard protocol, but he needs to remind his people not to trash the place. Kate didn't have time to hide much of anything here and no sane prosecutor would try to sell that Caffrey was harboring a fugitive. The Bureau's own surveillance tapes show he hasn't been in contact with her and that she broke into his apartment. Of course, Peter figures if they hadn't busted in, Caffrey would have let her stay. But things that didn't happen don't count and Caffrey has a clean record.

The noise draws Caffrey's attention out again and he looks at Peter for the first time. Those eyes put Kate's to shame, fringed in black lashes, extraordinarily beautiful and intense.

"You made sure she found out I was here," he states, "didn't you?" 

Peter nods, a little ashamed for using Caffrey that way when it had been clear the guy was trying to not be found. Despite Peter's suspicions about certain forgeries, the Bureau can't prove Caffrey has done anything illegal. It isn't a crime to fall for the wrong woman, though it has certainly led to the commission of more than one.

He braces himself for yelling at least. Caffrey doesn't seem like the kind to get violent, but there's always a chance. People aren't entries in an account book. They don't always add up.

Caffrey surprises him again, shrugging stiffly, and walking over to where the bug is hidden. Peter can only watch, appalled, as he pries it out of its hiding place and holds it between thumb and forefinger.

"How?" Peter asks.

"It screws up the radio. I had to move it." The radio sat on the mantle of a bricked-up fireplace. Now it sits on a table by the door. Whoever placed the bug should have realized it would fritz reception and give itself away. Peter's going to chew someone out. Caffrey's known they were listening the whole time. No wonder he's been so quiet.

Caffrey drops it into Peter's hand.

"If you know it was there...?" 

He walks over the windows and looks down, maybe watching the anthill boil of official vehicles, agents and cops cleaning up after the bust on the street below, maybe not seeing anything at all. The sky flares orange and gaudy pink and the sun reflects painfully off city glass as if to show off before the glitter of human light takes over for the night. There are no lights on in the apartment yet and the corners have dimmed into shadow. Caffrey's profile is gilt, though, and Peter notices absently that his blue shirt has been pulled loose from his pants. Kate's doing. He has a startling image of her small hand on Caffrey's skin and clears his throat.

"I didn't think she'd come." Implicit is the admission Caffrey would have run or warned Kate if he had. It's nothing Peter didn't guess.

"You were wrong." It's pathetically inadequate under any circumstances, but Peter's not a guy who is comfortable with expressed emotions. He has them, sure, and he sympathizes. He just thinks displays should be kept to a bedroom or locked in a bathroom. Some place where they won't make him feel uncomfortable and guilty.

Not that Caffrey's making a scene. Peter just worries he's going to explode.

"If you aren't arresting me too... ?" 

"No." They've got nothing on Caffrey. No one does. He's smart and Kate kept him clean. Maybe that means she loves him. Or she just doesn't trust him. Kate's the only one who knows. There's no evidence to warrant arresting him, in any case. "No. Sorry about the door." 

"The door? Oh. Doesn't matter. It needed a better lock anyway." 

Like any lock would keep Kate Moreau out.

Caffrey keeps his back to Peter. "Could you go?" 

Caffrey leans his forehead against the glass. His eyes are closed and he's hugging himself again like he's about to fly apart. Peter could explain about the search, but instead he just does as he's asked, and leaves. He tells Berilli to make sure a locksmith is sent to fix the door on the way out.

Now Is a Cold Reminder

"Did you know about any of this?" Peter asks despite himself. The latest storage facility doesn't have lights or electricity in the smaller spaces, so he's standing to the side of the open door and holding up the heavy duty flashlight. Kate put in metal shelving. It's impossible to tell what some of the things on the gray-painted shelves are: the protective packaging obscures the contents in most cases. He can pick out a Thai Horse swathed in plastic bubble wrap along with several other sculptures. It's nothing he ever knew she stole.

Neal's kneeling next to the bottom shelf, shuffling several small boxes to one side. He turns his head just enough to cut his gaze to the side and look at Peter, only to wince away from the glare of the flashlight's beam, blinking hard. "What?" 

"You heard me." 

"I guess I just don't understand why you're asking that," Neal snaps.

He pulls one of the boxes closer and flips it open, revealing a nest of deep blue velvet holding ivory carvings. Peter can't make out what they portray from his vantage. Neal stares at them for a moment, before laughing softly and saying, "Mammoth ivory netsuke." His head comes up and he surveys the dim expanse of the storage space. "I guess this was Kate's oriental room." 

"Answer the question." 

"No." 

"No, you didn't know or, no, you won't answer the question?" 

"Take your pick." Neal shrugs fluidly. "These are very old and very good. Even the least of them is worth over a thousand dollars." 

"And you know this... ?" 

"I worked at an art auction house, Peter, and I went to art school. We did more than dab paint." 

"Oh, so sorry." 

Neal rises to his feet and picks his way down the line of shelves, studying the objects on them without touching. "I don't think that whatever it is, that it's here. None of this is worth murder." 

"You saying anything is?" Peter asks out of genuine curiosity.

He gets another shrug and Neal doesn't turn to face him. "It's art." Maybe for Neal that's enough of an answer; he breathes and bleeds art. It makes Peter itch.

"The Bureau has to confiscate it all, you know," he says as if that's news. They've already taken in and begun inventorying the contents of the first three caches Neal's shown them.

"Oh, no, really?" Neal drawls. "I never guessed." 

"Neal... " 

Neal turns and faces him, before closing the distance between them to arm's reach. His smile isn't quite brilliant, it's a little too unsteady for that, but it's genuine. "It's okay, Peter. You'll get it back to the owners and at least some of it will be on display again. Art's not meant to be hidden in a vault unseen, any more than a Stradivarius should be sitting sealed up and silent." 

Peter feels a little breathless. Neal smells like Peter's own soap and shampoo, since he helped himself to it when he used Peter's shower. Neal naked and wet in the shower of his apartment is a line of thought Peter needs to shut down right now if he doesn't want Neal to guess what's going on with him.

Assuming Neal hasn't figured it out already. Peter can't decide if Neal is simply comfortable in his space because he trusts Peter or if he's teasing.

Neal holds up his hand and opens it, revealing one of the netsuke on his palm. The ivory is only a shade paler than Neal's skin. "Sure I can't keep this one?" he asks, a hint of mischief coloring his words and his expression.

"Completely," Peter rasps. So close, he can follow the sinuous lines of the carving and pick out the lines of two naked men twined around each other. That's his answer, though, isn't it? Neal's all too aware and having fun with it, teasing Peter, inviting Peter to laugh with him.

Which is a better reaction than Peter has any right to hope Neal would have.

"Erotic carvings," Neal says. "The entire collection. Every variation possible and some I don't want to see anyone try." He cocks his head and studies the netsuke. "This one's pretty vanilla." 

"I think we might have different definitions of a lot of things." Like everything from vanilla to legal.

"Too bad." But Neal returns the netsuke to the box it came from without proffering any kind of invitation or protesting. Peter thinks he does anyway. The ill-lit space and the thunder of his pulse in his ears mean Neal could palm and pocket half the contents of the box it came from and Peter would miss it. He chooses to believe that little piece of ivory will end up in the FBI's evidence lockers at the end of the day.

"I'm going to call Diana and get a team here to take an inventory and handle transporting everything to evidence," Peter says. 

~*~

Peter can't pin down exactly when they developed a routine, but it's already verging on domestic. After a morning spent going through one of Kate's caches, Neal and he eat lunch in the park, before Peter goes back to his office and Neal returns to the studio to paint.

He suspects the apartment this morning ‒ little more than a single room in a rundown rowhouse that hid more security than a National Guard Armory ‒ disappointed Neal even more than it did him. Aside from a bed, a microwave, a cheap TV and a closet full of clothes, including uniforms and other disguises, they found nothing beyond a collection of false IDs, credit cards, and ten thousand dollars cash. Running money. If Kate ever had anything else there, she moved it on before her arrest.

The paperwork on consigning the apartment's contents to the Bureau's evidence warehouse bores Peter to a near coma. He leaves the office on time for once, stops at an Indian restaurant for curry and heads for June Ellington's Riverside mansion. Eating take-out with Neal on that amazing terrace will be much nicer than going straight home and they can pick out another address from Kate's list to visit in the morning. 

~*~

A car horn carelessly blasts on the street below and snaps Neal awake, aching hard and rocking his hips into the mattress. He rolls onto his back and hisses to himself as the smooth sheets drag over his erection. The horn blares again and Neal blinks and tries to catch the edges of his dream before it dissolves. He watches dim light from outside chase over the loft's ceiling.

His breath catches.

Oh.

Not a Kate dream.

Peter. 

He's still drowsy and aroused and the guilt he may feel in the morning isn't materializing yet.

Whatever his head says, Neal's body has its own strong opinion, which is that Peter's hands would feel good on his bare skin. They'd wrap around his cock and pull an orgasm right out of him.

Thoughtlessly, he reaches for himself, sliding his loose pajama pants down to his thighs. It's easy to wrap his hand around himself and replay the pieces of the dream still with him. Neal hesitates for a second, but he's done this so many times, alone in his bed and aching for Kate, it's a habit, even if this time he's imagining someone else.

The idea of Peter Burke pressing him into the bed, his mouth on Neal's chest and then lower, has Neal panting and writhing under his own hand, hotter than he's been in years. When he imagines returning that touch, going down on Peter, Neal comes with a groan.

"Fuck," he whispers to the darkness when he has his breath back, and then, harsher, "Kate." Now the guilt's hitting him. He hitches his pants back up, rolls onto his side and stares at nothing, but he can't lie to himself. He just got off fantasizing about Peter Burke. Neal wishes his plan of getting away from Peter and his inconvenient, inappropriate, growing feelings for him by sleeping at the loft had worked a little better.

It's no use trying to sleep. The chaos in his head won't stop long enough to drop off even while his body is still humming in satisfaction.

There's only one way he knows to pull his thoughts into some kind of order.

Neal flips the sheets back, grimaces at the mess he left and strips them off, before abandoning the bedroom in favor of cleaning himself up. The studio welcomes him afterward with the scents of linseed and turpentine and oils. He sketches and paints until dawn overtakes the studio's lighting. It's always worked before.

When he stops, he sways in place, bare feet sweating against the floor, and considers what he's painted: Peter Burke at his desk, case file open before him, head propped on on hand, wedding ring still gleaming on one finger.

"Well, fuck." 

Neal shoves paint-flecked fingers through his hair. It's not like he paints in a fugue, he knows what he's doing and in this case meant it to exorcise whatever hold Peter's got on him, but that's not what the painting shows now he's done.

The work on his easel is easily as good as anything he's done in years. It's better than any portrait he's ever done of Kate.

He's in trouble.

He wants Peter and Peter's still in love with his ex-wife. 

~*~

Neal insists on eating from plates even though the food is take-out Peter brought to the loft as an excuse to see him. Afterward, he rolls the sleeves of his dress shirt up neatly and starts rinsing everything off. Peter automatically begins helping clear the table.

Neal is at the sink, up to his wrists in hot soapy water when Peter reaches around him to hand him the last plate. They're so close Peter feels the shudder run down Neal's back. Neal's breathing quickens and he leans back fractionally. Peter manages to set his plate down without dropping it, the action brushing the inside of his arm against Neal's bare forearm.

A small sound catches at the back of Neal's throat, the click of a hard swallow, and for Peter it's all the excuse he needs to push closer.

Looking down at the sink has Neal's neck bent. A strip of vulnerable skin is on display, between the crisp collar of his shirt and the ends of his hair, curling in the humidity of the kitchen. If he doesn't want Peter, he'll slide away now, make a deflecting remark, maybe even shove an elbow in Peter's gut. This won't go any further.

Neal doesn't do any of those things. He's still but trembling. His voice is hoarse and uncertain enough to give Peter pause. "What does this mean?" 

"It doesn't have to mean anything," Peter assures him. Peter still loves El; Neal still aches for Kate. They can keep this just physical. He cuffs Neal's wrist with his hand, warm, skin slick with soap and water, bone and muscle a fascinating dichotomy of fragility and strength. His other hand comes to rest on Neal's hip, the jut of bone sharp and right under his palm, as he presses himself against Neal's strong back. "It'll be okay. We're not hurting anyone." 

The minute Neal gives in to what he seems to want too, Peter wraps his arms around him. Neal's wet hands go to his and they thread their fingers together as Neal leans back into the embrace, pliant as green grass. The moment can only stretch so long before one of them has to move.

It's Neal, otter-sleek, twisting to face Peter without Peter ever letting go. His arms twine around Peter's neck and his face angles up. Late day stubble rasps against Peter's as Neal touches his lips to the corner of Peter's mouth. It's a tease of a kiss, as chaste as a kiss between two men can be while their bodies clamor for more. The sweetness of it makes Peter ashamed. He ignores the twist of emotion and chases after Neal's mouth, catching him in another, much less than chaste kiss that has Neal rocked back against the sink counter, something splashing and water sloshed onto the floor.

A thigh between Neal's legs has him rocking urgently into Peter, already hard, making a low, wild sound in his throat that wipes away every doubt Peter still harbors.

He strips Neal out of the vest and dress shirt with ruthless efficiency while Neal's hands pluck at his belt and then his shirt distractedly.

"Neal," he murmurs, "Neal. Tell me you want this as much as I do." 

Pupils blown wide, a sheen of sweat on his upper lip, Neal stares at Peter. "Want," he repeats, licks his lip and nods decisively, confirming with words, "Yeah, I want it." 

It's a blur of stripped clothes and bared skin after that, caresses that nearly burn, hands that hold almost too tight, bodies straining together as if they're racing each other. They end on Neal's high bed, rocking together urgently. Peter knows he's hurting Neal a couple of times, even using the lotion he finds on the bedside table, but Neal clutches him closer, harder, when he starts to hesitate. He tastes blood when he kisses Neal too hard and the split in his lip opens again. He tries to gentle what he's doing, but Neal writhes against him and Peter forgets, urged on by Neal's need along with his own desire. Neal's entire body arches toward Peter when Peter braces both hands on the headboard and sinks inside him. One fine-boned hand fists the white sheets underneath them and Neal reaches for his cock with the other.

Too fast, Peter comes hard inside Neal, losing track of anything outside himself, and only notices Neal finishing himself off when he spills against Peter's belly.

When the endorphin rush and the haze of orgasm are fading, Peter rolls off Neal and throws his arm over his eyes. Neal doesn't move beside him, just breathes, and guilt gnaws at Peter's gut. Neal got off too, no thanks to him, and, Christ, Peter knows he's just made a mistake. Even if they're divorced, it still feels like cheating on Elizabeth and, to make it worse, he's managing to do that and betray his fragile friendship with Neal too. Could he be any more of a bastard? 

"I'm sorry," he mutters, still hiding his eyes. "You know I still love El."

"Yeah, I get that," Neal says. His voice gives away nothing, but he rolls out of the bed in the next instant. He has his pants on and his shirt in his hands by the time Peter lowers his arm and looks. He left marks on Neal's back, red marks that will take at least a day to heal. Neal shrugs on his wrinkled dress shirt and then glances back over his shoulder. Peter can't read Neal's expression, it's too closed off, even as he smiles. "Forget it. You didn't do anything I didn't want." 

"Neal ‒ " 

"Please don't apologize again," Neal tells him. "I know the score." 

If only it were that easy. A sinking feeling tells Peter he did everything Neal wanted and nothing Neal needed. 

~*~

El almost stumbles when she walks in the restaurant. She nearly cancelled the lunch date, but curiosity got the better of her. She wants to know what's happened to Neal, who thoroughly and completely charmed her the day he showed up at Premier Events' steps.

That doesn't mean she expects to see him, dressed in another ridiculously attractive vintage suit, sitting at the table with Peter.

There is a moment as she watches them and they don't know she's there that Elizabeth lets herself judge. They sit opposite each other at the table but there's a connection she recognizes. Of course, there's the fact Peter has never brought a colleague to one of their lunches. More telling is Peter's relaxed posture, the curl of a smile at one corner of his mouth, and the absent, yet possessive way he touches Neal's arm.

She knows Peter's behavior with someone he's sleeping with, but she doesn't know Neal's. She doesn't need to, because Neal's gaze keeps coming back to Peter. He's the moon and Peter's the planet that has captured him.

Peter usually spots El as soon as she enters a restaurant if he beats her to lunch. This time he doesn't notice her until Neal's attention leaves him.

A beautiful smile spreads over Neal's face as he sees Elizabeth. He's on his feet before Peter, pulling back her seat, and genuinely delighted to see her. She lets him skim her cheek with a kiss and accepts his murmured, "That is a great perfume on you," as the platonic compliment it's meant to be.

Peter looks so conflicted as she's seated that El almost laughs. She can tell: he's slept with both of them and now doesn't know who to be jealous of. She smiles at him fondly, because it's wonderful to realize she doesn't mind at all that Peter has moved on. Her basic reaction is finally.

Now they can become real friends

"So, tell me," she says as she looks back and forth between them, "tell me everything." Yes, it's a little wicked, but the panicky color on Peter's face as he misintreprets her question delights her.

"What? El, it's not ‒ I ‒ " 

She takes pity before he starts excavating that hole to China. "Have you cracked the case?" 

Peter's attempt at a silent sigh is funny too. Neal's flinch, not so much, and Elizabeth regrets playing games. Whatever is between Peter and Neal, it's new and probably fragile, and he's still raw with grief. In fact, this may not be a good thing for Neal at all. His gaze drops and he begins fiddling with the linen napkin, folding it into a swan shape deftly.

"Yes and no," Peter says. Neal's gaze snaps to him, uncertain and intent. "We made an arrest. Neal's been helping us recover some of the things Kate stole too." 

"His star is on the rise," Neal murmurs.

"Hughes may have actually smiled yesterday," Peter agrees, "though it wasn't documented." 

Elizabeth laughs, remembering Peter's boss's patrician scowl. She catches one of Neal's hands before he can start dismantling the napkin swan. She wonders if she could persuade him to teach her that one. It's far more elegant than the version Premier Events is currently offering. There's a fleck of blue under his middle finger's cuticle. She finds it adorable. "Then I can hire Neal?" 

Peter scowls at her hand holding Neal's and Neal gentling disengages. "She's joking," Neal says. He gives El a sidelong, pleading glance before turning his gaze back to Peter again. "Aren't you?" 

"Well, a little," she agrees, though she really wasn't.

Peter laughs, the sound rusty, and Neal relaxes a fraction. Elizabeth's pleasure in the meeting fades a little. She isn't as sure as she was of what's going on between the two of them.

"Neal belongs to me a little longer," Peter tells her. "At least until all the art and valuables Kate took are recovered and catalogued." 

"He's worried there's still someone else out there," Neal explains.

Elizabeth raises her eyebrows at Peter. He nods back seriously. "Fowler was working for someone." 

"And you can't get him to tell you ‒ " 

"He died in his cell the night after his arraignment," Peter explains.

"That's awful," Elizabeth whispers and steers the conversation away.

They order after that and talk about other things, Shakespeare and road work that upsets the city traffic patterns, the language of flowers and insect allergies, Central American vacation spots and nude beaches. Elizabeth likes them, Peter doesn't, and Neal sides with him.

"Bad experience?" Elizabeth teases him.

Neal laughs with her and admits, "Once." 

He must have made a pretty picture, Elizabeth thinks to herself, and smiles into her wine glass. "Sunburn?" 

It's sweet the way Neal's cheeks flush and she knows she guessed right.

Peter pays more attention to Elizabeth than Neal and just grows more and more tense and obviously uncomfortable through the meal, though Neal exerts himself to be charming and entertaining to the point El begins to hurt when Peter eventually cuts Neal off after checking his watch visibly. "We need to get back. The Bureau isn't paying me to wine and dine you, Neal," he says at last.

"Okay," Neal says immediately. He digs a fingernail into the fresh tape supporting the splinted finger.

"Abandoning me, both of you?" Elizabeth jokes to lighten the atmosphere Peter just blasted. The other option is kicking Peter and Neal already looks like someone kicked him.

"Never!" Peter blurts. "El, I'd spend the rest of the day with you if I could. But we're still working on identifying where some of the items from Kate's caches originated." 

"Go on then," she tells him. She catches the fine fabric of Neal's coatsleeve as he starts to rise. "Come back with him next week." 

Neal agrees with a nod, but he's gone cool and withdrawn as he asks, "Are you sure?" 

"El," Peter protests.

"One of my clients insists I use his table at ‒ " Elizabeth whispers the name of a very exclusive restaurant just to watch Neal's eyes light up, " ‒ and I'd enjoy a meal there more if I share it with someone with a palate." 

"I like good food," Peter objects.

"You like deviled ham," Elizabeth points out. Neal gives him a look of horror.

"Fine, but I'm coming too, if that won't ruin the experience." Peter's grumbling, but not insulted, and Elizabeth is satisfied he won't 'forget' to bring Neal now that's she's offered a specific reason she wants Neal to eat with them.

She hopes that next week Peter will pay more attention to Neal than her. 

~*~

Peter has his arms full of take-out bags ‒ Italian from the place Neal and he both like ‒ a six pack of his favorite beer, and a bottle of wine. He's also juggling a briefcase full of files, his laptop case, and his dry-cleaning. The idea is he'll have something fresh to change into in the morning. Neal's made it clear he's welcome and Peter likes having someone sleeping beside him, so it makes sense to stay the night.

He meets June on the second floor stairs and flushes a little at the knowing little smile on her face. "I picked up dinner," he blurts.

She nods and tells him, "He's up stairs." 

He knows, but it's more that she's telling Peter it's okay with her if he goes upstairs and joins Neal.

"Thanks." 

"He won't thank you for that wine." 

Peter cranes his head and eyes the bottle he has gripped at the neck between his index and middle finger. It's a precarious hold but he can see the label. "The guy at the store said ‒ " 

June's laughter tells him he got taken.

"That bad?" Peter asks, feeling sheepish.

"My dear Agent Burke," she advises, "next time call Neal and have him tell you what to buy." She checks the name on the take-out bags. "What have you brought?" 

"Spaghetti and meatballs for me and swordfish capanota for Neal," Peter answers dutifully.

"Ah. Stay here a moment and I'll bring you something that will compliment your meal." 

"You don't have to do that ‒ " 

"It all turns to vinegar eventually if you don't drink it when it's right," June assures him. "I haven't had three such handsome men in and out of the house in years. All the neighbors are talking behind their hands. It's well worth a few bottles of wine to set them a-twitter." 

"Three?" Peter asks, because he can't not, he and Neal are alike in that, they both always want to know.

"You've met Mozzie?" 

Neal's buddy, the one who was partners with Kate, the one who Peter has not met. He hasn't even caught a glimpse of him. The temptation to set up a little surveillance outside the mansion and get some pictures of 'Mozzie' rears up.

"No," he admits.

Neal would never forgive him. It's a surprisingly strong argument against acting, realizing that there are things Peter can do that would cost him Neal. His actions have consequences. Putting the job ahead once already cost him Elizabeth. If he repeats himself, it could cost him Neal's friendship.

"You will," June says with another mysterious smile. "Now stay here." She plucks the offending bottle from Peter's fingers and starts on down the stairs. "I'll dispose of this and be right back." 

Peter juggles his burdens into a better order and tries to wait patiently. The scent of garlic bread and red sauce teases at his nose and his stomach is grinding against itself, a reminder that coffee and a vending machine candy bar snagged between meetings with Hughes and half a dozen higher ups looking to add a little reflected glory to their own resumes were too many hours ago. It amazes him, how suddenly Counter-terrorism, Counter-intelligence, and Organized Crime feel they contributed to the recovery of so many famous pieces of art. He's shaking his head over it when June returns.

She places the bottle safely in his grip and smiles at him again. "Thank you, Mrs. Elling ‒ " 

"June, please." 

"June," Peter repeats.

She tips her head toward the next floor up. "Don't let your food go cold." 

"Right. Thanks, again, for the wine, and giving Neal a place here, and I'll try to be quiet when I leave ‒ " 

The look in her eyes reminds him of Elizabeth. He's amusing her. Peter fumbles into silence.

"Don't worry about disturbing me, Agent Burke," Junes says. "My bedroom is two floors down from the loft and on the other side the house." 

"Okay." He thinks he missed something just now, but starts up the stairs anyway.

"Oh, Agent Burke," June calls up to him when he's two steps short of the landing. "I'll have Britta bring up coffee and pastries for you and Neal in the morning." 

He nearly trips on the last step, rushes the rest of the way up and tells Neal, "She knows," as soon as Neal opens the door.

"Who knows what?" Neal asks, amusement in his tone at Peter's choked exclamation. He plucks away the bottle of wine and the take-out, leaving Peter to divest himself of his briefcase, the laptop and the dry-cleaners' bag.

"Ju ‒ your landlady," Peter answers. He turns in time to see Neal set the bottle and bags on his kitchen table, take in that Neal's wearing a thin dark t-shirt, untucked, and paint-stained, faded jeans that hug his long legs. His feet are bare. Peter's breath whistles out soundlessly, another sort of hunger kindling low in his belly. He crosses the room, takes Neal's face in his hands and kisses him. When he draws back and sees Neal's pupils blown dark and dazed, he adds, "That we're doing this." 

Neal glances at the table and then back to Peter. "Well, if she gave you that bottle, she must approve." His hands go to Peter's tie, unknot it swiftly, and toss it. "You're getting rid of that tie." 

"I like that tie." 

"I'll forgive that." Neal closes his hand on Peter's wrist and pulls him away from the kitchen toward the bed. "C'mon."

"The food ‒ " He doesn't care about the tie or the food, not when Neal's like this, and his half-hearted, unfinished protest is strictly pro forma.

"We can eat it later."

~*~

"You're sleeping with him!" Mozzie accuses when Neal slips and it's definitely out there, it's more than a one night stand, it's been three, almost four weeks since Neal turned to Burke for help. Mozzie knows his face is a caricature of disbelief and shock in broad strokes, but he never anticipated this. Doesn't Burke have a wife? He blurts that out because he's in shock. "He's a married man." 

Neal flinches hard and Mozzie wants to kick himself. Seeing Neal in agony over Kate cut him to the quick; anything, anyone, who can bring Neal any kind of happiness is a good. But... but a Suit!? For that matter, Mozzie wishes he'd known Neal swung both ways before this. He would have hooked Neal up with Taylor, let him steal the kid from Kate. She never deserved him.

"He's divorced," Neal whispers.

"Yeah and you told me about the ex-Mrs. Burke, who he is still hung up on, not to mention ‒ " Mozzie stops himself. Neal doesn't need the reminder; Neal's the one who told him Burke still wears his wedding ring. "Damn it." It's too soon. Neal's going to get hurt. Again. He asks, "How long?" 

"Three weeks." 

Mozzie scrubs his hands over his face and gets himself under control, wiping away the visible signs of his distress over this development.

Instead of saying anything more, he begins poking through the bottles of wine on Neal's counter. They're all very good, better than Neal's ever been able to afford regularly. "Where'd these come from?" 

"June's wine cellar." 

"I think I'm in love." 

Neal smiles slightly. "Yeah, me too." 

The subject of Peter Burke and Neal's potentially disastrous thing for him is tabled for the moment. Mozzie picks out a bottle of red and Neal provides a corkscrew and two wine glasses. Before he can call for some kind of take-out, they discover June's staff have stocked Neal's refrigerator and freezer with several meals that only need heating. That's in addition to the loft's fantastic view and the incredible coffee June provides. It's time Neal had some good luck, but Mozzie still feels a little envious. Just a little. He knows the nice place doesn't make up for misery Neal's going through.

Mozzie commandeers the couch for himself after they eat, pouring himself and Neal each another glass of the very fine red. Neal curls in a chair with his ever-present sketchbook. They sit quietly for some time, before the silence gets to Mozzie and he starts talking at random. He riffs on the Knights Templar for a while, then disparages Dan Brown with venomous contempt as a shill for the Man. "That tripe was misdirection. Inoculating the masses against the truth." 

"And the truth is?" Neal asks curiously. Neal always sounds curious and, well, interested when Mozzie lays out the conspiracies that surround them. Mozzie knows it's more curiosity over what he'll claim next than belief, because Neal has mocked several of his theories, albeit gently, over the years, but only ever to Mozzie's face. He defends Mozzie to anyone else, even Kate once. Neal's not a doormat, even if he is inclined to try to make everyone around him happy.

"Out there," Mozzie answers promptly. "But only if you take off your blinders and look." 

"Funny, you don't look like Fox Mulder." 

"Funny, haha. That's just another example of Big Media playing patsy to the secret cabal that really controls the world's governments. Global misinformation is no joke, my friend. Say it's fiction and then anyone who claims, rightly, that these things are real is labeled as a whacko." 

Neal nods in apparent agreement. Mozzie finishes his wine, well aware Neal is watching him now, and that he's getting twitchy enough to set off Neal's alarms.

"So what is it?" Neal sets the sketchpad and his pencil on the coffee table and picks up his wine.

Mozzie blinks twice. He wishes he'd worn tinted glasses. They always make him feel a little armored, like no one can see into his eyes and his head through them. Not that anyone can, except Neal who sometimes seems to be able to read Mozzie without effort. It's really a crying shame Neal isn't interested in a life of crime. He'd be brilliant.

"Well." 

"Mozzie." 

"There are certain rumors." 

"Rumors." 

"That you may need to know about. Perhaps even the Suit." 

Neal's eyes widen and Mozzie hurries to go on. "My many contacts report that ‒ " 

"Your many contacts?" Neal repeats in amusement.

"Yes. I cultivate mutually beneficial information sharing among a wide range of individuals." 

"You pay Sally to hack people's computers." 

"Among other sources," Mozzie insists.

"And?" 

Neal takes a sip of his wine. Mozzie waits for him to swallow, not wanting to elicit a spit take or make him choke. "Vincent Adler is in New York, Neal." 

Neal sets the wine glass down abruptly. "He's here?" 

"I think so. My source says he was in Copenhagen before that." Mozzie pauses then lays out the part that really scares him, for Neal and over what Neal may do. "Alex was there too." 

"They were together?" Neal's quick, but he's not ruthless. He doesn't think like a killer or really even a crook. He thinks of allies, not victims. Because of that, he doesn't draw the right conclusion this time. Mozzie's managed to instill a certain level of paranoia in him, but never enough cynicism.

"If they were, they're not now," Mozzie replies. "Neal, she's dead. Someone found her body in the water. The ID only came through a couple of days ago, but she'd been missing almost two months. She was supposed to meet Hale in Montreal and never made it." 

Neal's face goes pale and blank. "He ‒ " 

"I don't know," Mozzie says. "Could he be the one?" 

"The one who bought Fowler?" Neal finishes. "Yes. Of course he is." Anger seethes through his voice. His face is set and hard; eyes hot as blue flames. He jumps to his feet, picks up his sketchbook and throws it at the bookcase-covered wall. The sketchbook breaks and its pages filled with beauty crumple and tear, falling loose and fluttering to the floor. Neal stands with his hands clenched in fists at his side, breathing hard. "It's him, Moz. It's Adler. He's the one behind everything. He wants the music box." 

Neal stands with his fists clenched, breathing hard, and Mozzie sees the pieces fall into place. Fowler, Adler, Alex, Kate, that damned amber music box Kate gave Neal as a 'fuck you' to Adler when Adler gave her the boot. Mozzie can guess every thought racing through Neal's head and he thinks it's going to crack Neal, because Neal will blame himself.

Neal refused to tell Kate where he hid the music box. Now he's probably thinking Kate died because he's selfish, because he knew she'd want the box back someday and made sure she couldn't find it ‒ Mozzie helped, so he's entitled to a hefty helping of self-blame too ‒ because that was Neal's way of getting back at her for choosing Adler over him.

Mozzie knows Neal's feeling guilty because he is as well. He can't say anything. Adler screwed them all. The wine tastes sour, but he slurps it down. Cheap or expensive, it'll get him drunk either way. He wonders if he was wrong to tell Neal about Adler. No, he had to do it. Adler always had an interest in Neal; Neal needs to be prepared.

Neal closes his eyes. Tears slip down his face. Mozzie pours them both another glass of wine and pretends he doesn't see. He doesn't ask if Neal is going to tell the Suit. Neal will make up his mind and Mozzie will go along with him, whatever he decides, and plan for the worst, just in case Burke turns out to be dirty too.

Paranoia is a skill. He keeps in practice. 

~*~

Peter's read through Kate's file so many times he can recite the information in his sleep. He provided most of it. He slaps the file closed in frustration. There's still nothing there to link Kate to Fowler or anyone who would have hired the dirty agent to get to her.

Worry keeps tugging at Peter's gut, too. Neal isn't in the office and he didn't come back to Peter's apartment the night before. Something is wrong. Maybe Neal's tired of him already, though it's only been a little over two weeks. It isn't like Peter's made a commitment. He's made a point of being honest about his intentions and how he still feels about El. Neal accepts that they aren't permanent. Maybe not. Maybe he regrets giving up Kate's loot. Peter still can't read what's going on in Neal's head half the time.

None of the personal stuff matters, Peter reminds himself. Neal's still a target. Peter's sure of that and the sudden silence and separation alarms him.

Because, even if it isn't love, Peter does care, damn it, and he needs to know Neal's okay.

He picks up his phone and scrolls through to find Neal's number. It's a conscious effort not to hold his breath while the phone rings.

A silent sigh still escapes Peter as soon as Neal answers. "Peter?" 

"Lunch?" Even the days when Neal doesn't come into the White Collar office with Peter to go over the inventories from the caches they've emptied and speculate on what's in the ones that lie farther afield, they've grown into a habit of meeting for lunch. He even brought Neal with him to his regular lunch date with Elizabeth last week. Neal's fit himself into Peter's life so naturally it's disturbing.

A pause follows his suggestion, alerting Peter that something's off. Neal doesn't take time to answer, he's so quick and always aware.

"Not today," Neal finally replies, "Okay?" 

"Why not?" Peter knows he sounds suspicious and winces at himself. Treating someone he's sleeping with like a suspect is the kind of thing that would earn him a chewing out from El if he had the gall to mention it to her. But they already have a routine and this disruption sets off Peter's inner alarms.

"I'm painting." 

"You're at the studio?" 

"Yeah." 

Peter considers kicking himself. Neal's not trying to come up with an excuse to avoid him, he's focused on his own work, something Peter should ‒ and usually does ‒ respect in other professionals.

"Look, you could come by for dinner," Neal suggests. Unspoken but clear is the invitation for Peter to stay the night. Just as clear is Neal's need to end the call and go back to his painting. Peter feels vaguely put out; just because he's always put his job first doesn't mean it's any fun to find himself run face first into the experience from the other side.

"Do you want me to bring something?" he asks.

"Italian," Neal replies promptly.

The sheer domesticity of their conversation strikes Peter after he ends the call. He finds himself staring at the phone in his hand and wondering how he ended up sleeping with Kate's boyfriend. What could Neal see in him beyond the man who locked Kate away? Why put up with Peter when he knows Peter will leave him to go back to Elizabeth given even a hint he has a chance? Peter's been up front about that, after all.

Is it really just sex for Neal? 

Neal is even more of an enigma than Kate.

That insight sends Peter after a considerably thinner file, one kept on a known associate of a suspected criminal: Neal's. Other agents assembled the file, including Paulson and Berilli, who have both moved on to other units since, but Peter is the one who contributed most of it. If asked, he would claim he knows the contents as well as he knows Kate's file.

It would be true, but the truth is there are holes in Neal's file that no one bothered to fill because the Bureau wasn't interested in Neal except as a way to get to Kate.

Peter flips through the background reports, the surveillance logs, the travel timelines, information provided by Customs, the IRS, interviews with a couple of neighbors, teachers from the art school he attended before dropping out the same year he met Kate. He's zoning out when an oddity pulls his attention back to the IRS employment forms. Neal filed income tax from two different employers the year he dropped out of art school. The first few months of that year he worked at an art gallery. Peter has always assumed Neal met Kate there.

His finger pauses at the name of Neal's second employer. It's too familiar. Kate held a job with the same company. That's not why Peter knows the name, though.

While he may not have every detail memorized, Peter knows the names and major players involved in most of the New York office's white collar cases from the last ten years. It's certainly hard to forget the one that embarrassed both the Bureau and the SEC when the guilty party skipped out of the country hours ahead of an arrest warrant.

Most agents still remember Vincent Adler.

The company Neal dropped out of art school to take a very well paying job with belonged to Adler. It fronted Adler's giant Ponzi scheme and was the same one the billionaire looted before boarding his chartered jet and disappearing.

Peter scrubs his hands over his face before rolling his shoulders and cracking his neck, trying to release the tension locking all his muscles tight.

Neal hasn't said anything about Vincent Adler. Okay, maybe Neal hasn't seen any reason to mention he worked for a crook, but it's still bothersome. At least, it bothers Peter. The last that the Bureau managed to track Adler, the man had gone to ground in Argentina. There's no reason to believe he isn't still there, living under an assumed name and enjoying his stolen billions; there's also no reason to think he's come back to New York or has anything to do with Kate Moreau's murder. Yet Peter's instincts all clamor that there is a connection.

Does Neal know about it, though? 

Peter picks up his office phone and connects to the file room, telling them wearily, "I need the Adler files. All of them." 

~*~

He needs to tell Peter about Adler. Just the thought makes Neal feel ill, though. Laying out what a fool he'd been, first for Adler and then with Kate, terrifies him for reasons he can't articulate to himself, except he trusted them both and they both betrayed him. His instincts urge him to go on trusting Peter but experience says Peter will abandon him the way they did. Telling Peter about Kate leaving him for Adler that first time promises only humiliation. Neal has a superstitious sense that revealing his past will just ensure it repeats.

Idiotic as that idea is, he can't shake it.

Kate said she loved him, but Peter's never said anything close to that. Peter's been adamant that he still loves Elizabeth and still wants to get back together with her. Even if he hadn't, Neal has eyes. At lunch with Elizabeth, Peter sees only her.

Plus, there's the damned music box Kate gave him. Neal's never even liked it, but he was determined he would hold onto it, even if Kate wanted it back. He hid it from her and part of him wants to keep holding onto it.

If he tells Peter about Adler, then he has to tell him about the music box, because it's the box Adler wants. It has to be, it's the only thing that makes sense of Kate and Alex's murders. Adler thinks the box holds some kind of prize or secret ‒ Neal isn't sure and doesn't care anyway ‒ that he's willing to kill to get. Once he tells Peter all of that, everything will come out, and Neal will have to turn the box over to the Bureau.

It would keep him safe, though. Once Adler knows Neal doesn't have it or any way to get it, he won't have any more interest in Neal. He proved that when he took Kate to Argentina with him and they left Neal behind.

Adler will go to ground again if he hears the FBI has the music box, though. He won't be caught. He won't pay for Kate's murder or Alex's either.

Neal adds another highlight to the detail on the cherub key he's painted Adler holding. Adler should look like a monster, but he doesn't. Only the way his hand folds around the cherub, closed on its wings, smothering it, gives away the darker side Adler always had.

If he doesn't mention Adler to Peter, then what? Set up a con, trick Adler, revenge Kate and Alex? 

Kill him? 

Neal jerks his hand back before he lays an angry streak of carmine across the pristine white of the shirt he's painted Adler wearing. His hand shakes as he sets the loaded brush aside. He can't. He can't even stomach the idea of killing someone, even someone who is a killer. It would stain something inside him forever.

He doesn't know what to do. Remain faithful to Kate, do what he knows she'd want him to do to take down Adler, or go on believing in Peter and trust Peter can do what's right? 

Peter will arrive soon.

The painting is nearly finished. Neal's still unsure. There's Kate and the past or there's Peter and his future... but there isn't Peter in his future, not once Kate's killer is caught. He carefully cleans the carmine from his brush and begins laying in highlights on a cufflink, where a distorted image of the music box reflects in its polished surface. The delicate work, done from memory, soothes him and he pushes aside his doubts again. 

~*~

The loft is dark, as dark as it can be with all the glass and New York just outside it. Peter can pick out shapes but no details, no colors. Sweat dries on Peter's chest. He should get out of bed and clean up. He should do that and go home. He does none of those things.

Neal sleeps on his stomach, head pillowed on one arm, facing away from Peter. It's not rejection, it's trust, or something that looks very like it. With the white sheets tangled low at his hips, the line of his back, the slow curve of his spine under ivory skin, invites Peter's fingers to trace it. He knows if he does, Neal will hum under his breath, smooth swimmer's muscles rippling in response, moving into his touch before he even rises out of sleep.

Peter resists. He wants to look at Neal like this and think. Once Neal opens his eyes, all Peter's ability to weigh the facts dissolves.

He has to wonder because Neal was with Kate Moreau three years and when he wasn't with her, this Mozzie guy could have have been teaching him too. How can Peter be sure Neal isn't playing some deep game? Neal has the skills.

It all comes back to Adler in the end.

Neal met Kate through Vincent Adler, Kate abandoned him for Adler and his stolen millions, and now Adler is back in New York. Adler saw Neal first, plucked a second year art student from a boring gallery job to become the youngest art acquisitions director in New York. Molded and polished, and according to at least two people Peter has re-interviewed in the last week, bedded Neal just the way he did Kate, before bringing the two of them together.

Is Neal still loyal Adler? Had it been more than a mentor and protege arrangement between Neal and Adler before Kate stole Neal's heart? Is the story just spite? 

Peter wants to shake Neal awake and pull all the answers out of him while he's warm with sleep and pliant as a willow limb dipping to the water.

He gets out the bed and pads to where his shorts ended up on the polished wooden floor, puts them on, considers putting on something more, but it's at the cusp between very late and very early. Neither June nor any of her staff are likely to glimpse him through the terrace's French doors. Not that even a state of complete undress would phase June Ellington. Byron Ellington was a rogue of the first order as well as one of the most talented artists of his generation. June was the one who turned his talent into a staggering fortune, though, and she did it by playing up his rogue's reputation and her own wild ways. June's certainly wise enough to realize what Neal and Peter get up to in the loft's luxurious bed, even if they do try to stay quiet.

Neal has beer in the refrigerator for Peter. The brand Peter buys for himself by preference. It isn't surprising. Neal's seen the inside of Peter's refrigerator and he notices things like that. Peter contemplates opening a bottle but gets himself a glass of water instead.

He walks back to the bedroom and stands at the foot of the bed, just looking at Neal sleep. He's been learning Neal since finding him at Elizabeth's office; a hundred small things reports and surveillance could never reveal. Painting means more to Neal than anything, for instance, and his paintings reflect him.

If he wants to know what's in Neal's head, for instance, Peter has only to look and see what he's painting. Neal hasn't said anything about Adler, but there's a picture of him, paint still wet, in the attached studio. It's no coincidence that Neal is painting Vincent Adler now.

Can they be in league with each other? 

Peter doesn't want to even think it, but it could all be a long con. Neal could have been setting up Kate since she went to jail. Even the beating could have been manufactured. But if Neal's that devious, then every emotion he's shown Peter is likely a lie too.

Kate's file is full of seductions. She never got to Peter, but he had El then.

Maybe Neal's even better than Kate was.

Is it possible to lie with your body? Of course it is, Peter thinks bitterly. But Neal didn't hide the Adler painting from him.

Neal shifts on the bed and reaches into the emptiness where Peter was lying.

Surely no one can lie in their sleep? 

"Peter?" he murmurs when Peter slides back into his place in the bed, hand finding Peter's waist and curving along it, an unconscious bid for the reassurance of touch. Peter cups the ball of Neal's shoulder, bone and lean muscle fitting his hand perfectly.

"I'm here." 

~*~

Thank God for Mozzie, Neal thinks as he answers his phone. Otherwise the voice on the other end would shock him into stupidity.

"Hello, Neal." 

And thank God Peter slept in and called to tell Neal he is staying late at the office to make up for that and going back to his apartment afterward. He'd have to hide who he's talking to if Peter were here.

"Vincent." 

"You don't sound surprised." 

Neal sits down at his kitchen table because his knees feel weak. Peter would not approve. In fact, Peter will be furious when he finds out Neal hasn't told him everything. He pushes that aside, channeling Kate. It isn't about Peter, it's about Kate. He has to be faithful to her the way Peter is still faithful to Elizabeth. Neal can't let the mess of emotions he feels for Peter affect his choices. He shouldn't, and if he does, Mozzie will say he's being a fool. Peter doesn't love Neal or doesn't want Neal to love him, so Peter's feelings shouldn't matter. That's all there is to it. If he doesn't tell Peter soonthough, there will be no going back. He knows that too.

He has to play Adler's game now, however, not worry about anything else. "I figured it out. I've been waiting for your call since your goon checked out the other day." 

"Poor fellow. He missed his wife so. Interesting that you know about him." 

Neal sucks in a long breath and wonders if that isn't a reference to Kate too. He's going to play it cool, the way Kate would, though. "If you believe in an afterlife, maybe he's with her. Anyway, if his people couldn't take care of him, how can I trust them to look out for me?" If Adler could reach Fowler in jail, then he must know Neal's been cooperating with the FBI. Spinning it will be smarter than denial.

Vincent laughs long and deep. "Oh, Neal, I have missed how quick you are." 

"Kind of ironic, the way it turned out Kate didn't know what you were threatening me to find out," Neal says, "while I did all along." 

"I have to admit it is so," Vincent agrees, his voice warm and approving the way it used to be. The pleasure Neal used to get from impressing Adler stirs inside. He hates himself for feeling that way, then and now. "My man was perhaps over enthusiastic. I never wished you harm." 

"I can't say the same. After you disappeared with Kate, I spent some quality time with a bottle cursing you." It's the honest truth. Without Mozzie, Neal might have landed in the gutter, a burnt-out alcoholic before twenty-five. He runs his free hand over the grain of the table before him, wishing for a shot of vodka to ease his nerves anyway. Neal knows what Adler wants, but he doesn't know what he should do. Money, justice, revenge, love and loyalty are all too tangled in his head. Past and present want to tear him apart.

The revelation doesn't ruffle Adler. "Since you've figured it out, you know what I want." 

"I do." 

"Are you ready to deal?" 

"Not yet," Neal says. "I have to think about what I want in exchange." 

"Don't push me too far." 

"Just far enough or you won't respect me in the morning." 

"Kate sharpened you up." 

"She did," Neal agrees. "Give me a number and I'll call you tomorrow with my terms." 

Neal memorizes the number Adler recites and nods as Adler finishes, "Don't try to double-cross me, Neal." 

"My little finger's still in a splint." 

"Until tomorrow." 

Neal ends the call before Adler can, sets his phone down on the table top, and looks around the loft blankly. He hasn't been here long and he already loves it. If he goes through with a deal with Adler, he'll have to abandon it, along with New York, and Peter. Peter. He should call Peter, tell him about Adler.

If he gives Adler the music box, he'll essentially be doing to Peter what Kate did to him: choosing Adler and money over... someone he could love. Does... love.

Neal pushes back from the table and flees to the studio before he can finish that thought.

He starts the painting so he can think. He has no subject in mind and his hands move almost without conscious intention, while he weighs the possibilities, the past against the future.

There's the kind of life Kate loved and Adler and more money than he could imagine, a life lived along the unraveling edge of the line.

On the other hand, there's Peter, Elizabeth, Mozzie and June, this studio, painting...

He's loved and been loved and he knows that's what he feels now, even if Peter never returns the feeling. Neal's hand trembles briefly, but he breathes deep through the wild rush of revelation, and lets it channel into paint and canvas and inspiration. He loves Kate. Will always. He loves Peter. One isn't a betrayal of the other. He can cling to what could have been or he can let go.

Kate takes shape under his brush, first a rough sketch in sepia, then a chiaroscuro of umber shadows, the background a sienna blur that might be his old apartment. Layer after layer of brush work pulls her from his mind out onto the canvas. It's a kind of magic, a spell, Neal sometimes thinks, that takes him over when he's creating something.

He smears pure Prussian Blue into the Mars Black shadowing Kate's hair, changes brushes, vaguely appreciating the quality of the sable Byron preferred and echoes the shade in curve of a cheekbone, on her bare shoulder, where the gleam of light traces her lips and in the dark rim of an iris. He prefers natural daylight for most of his work, but for this the fierce artificial light works better. Kate could be hard and cold; the light picks that out. He isn't painting for some sunny gallery. Like Kate, this portrait belongs to the night and the false glow of halogen and neon.

His palette fills up and the rag he uses for his brushes leaves stains on his fingers that Neal wipes on his pants and his undershirt or streaked in his hair after he thoughtlessly swipes it out of his eyes.

He paints the Kate he loved, but it isn't enough, isn't her, or rather just one facet of the whole woman, and Neal knows it and goes on, working subtle detail into her expression and her stance, the angle of her head, her focus. He paints the Kate who never saw something she wanted without taking it, the one who always danced a dozen steps ahead of anyone else. Her hand lifts the heavy swathe of her hair away from her neck, an invitation to hook a necklace around the pale stretch of her throat. A smile that's half promise and half innocence shapes her mouth. Her eyes are wide, mirrors of whatever the watcher wants to see. She's everything but pure; she's the woman who admired Vincent Adler more after discovering he was a crook than when he was her mark, she's the Kate who stole from Matthew Keller the night after he killed a man in their Barcelona apartment, who double-crossed Mozzie and who refused to tell Neal what Fowler wanted from her.

At the same time, she's the woman who laughed with him, made love to him, escaped jail to find him and left him the key to everything she ever stole. Neal puts everything they ever shared into the painting.

He lets it all go. He lets Kate, the dream and the woman, go, consigns her to paint and canvas and memory.

Kate's gone, Kate's dead, and Neal's alive. He has this, his painting, and if he's lucky, he can have Peter. He's loved and he's hurt and he can love someone else. It isn't a betrayal.

Maybe it makes sense that he can only, finally, paint the real Kate when he's in love with someone else. It's time to face up to how he feels and stop pretending Peter's just a port in the storm.

Whatever else, Neal knows as he signs his initials to the right lower corner of the life-size canvas, it is a great portrait and probably the best thing he's ever done.

It's dawn when Neal steps away. He deliberately doesn't look at the painting now that its done. Instead, he tiredly cleans the brushes and knives and his palette at the far end of the studio, where the wall shares plumbing with the loft kitchen and bathroom on the other side. His shoulders and back ache and a headache throbs behind his left eye. He's miserably reminded that in a few years he may need glasses or contacts. He checks he's capped every tube of paint and puts them away according to Byron's system, thinking he'll rearrange them to his own preferences soon.

He knows what he's going to do next. It's still early, so Neal's got time to get over to the storage facility ‒ not one Kate used ‒ and retrieve the music box. He heads for the shower and stands under the hot water until it gives up, before dressing in one of Byron's most elegant suits and heading out. 

~*~

Peter tells himself its worry about Neal that drags him out of bed early and halfway across town to the loft before he can even get breakfast. It isn't that he misses having Neal in his apartment or being with Neal. Of course, he misses the sex ‒ it's pretty spectacular ‒ but one night without isn't enough to explain the itch under his skin to see Neal.

He just has this feeling. Something's not quite right. NYPD closed Kate's case weeks ago, more than satisfied to pin it on Fowler and save the state a homicide trail, Hughes and the higher-ups are too happy over the good publicity the Bureau's receiving thanks to the stolen art works recovered thanks to Neal's bout of honesty to ask any uncomfortable questions, so Peter's doubts are his alone. His gut keeps insisting there's more and it involves Vincent Adler. He doesn't know if it's because he hasn't said anything to Neal about Adler or if his doubts and worries are warranted and Neal is running his own game. Maybe it's just he's grown used to having someone else sleeping beside him. Maybe he cares more than he's ready to admit. No maybe about that and he's still trying to figure out how he ended up involved with Kate Moreau's boyfriend.

Neal gave him a key with June's permission, so Peter lets himself in and goes up the stairs without ringing the bell. It's too early for June to be up, though he catches a snatch of voices from the staff and the rattle of cookware in one of the kitchens. A second key lets Peter into the loft.

There's no one there. It's a subtle thing, but Peter can always tell. The loft is empty.

He's already figured out that while Neal has no problem getting up in the morning, he doesn't wake obscenely early, unless it's for breakfast. With June's staff adopting him, Neal has no reason to go out for food.

Peter pokes around, noting the bed has either been already made or never slept in, before giving in and checking the studio. It's possible Neal fell asleep there.

His heart skips a beat as soon as he sees the portrait of Kate.

It hits Peter worse than finding the picture of Adler a few days ago.

It's an amazing piece, and in the course his work, Peter has seen and handled several grand masters. He's even examined a forgery of a Raphael which Kate passed in Andorra that he suspects was Neal's work. He's always been impressed by Neal's talent. He's still never seen anything as sublime as this.

It's breathtaking and heartbreaking. Looking at it has tears burning Peter's eyes.

Tears for Kate, for Neal, and for himself.

Looking at Kate's picture, Peter knows in his bones that Neal will never let go. The portrait is Neal's declaration of his love. He's chosen Kate's life. He's gone to Adler.

Peter has to brace himself against a chair back as it hits him. He's lost Neal to the past. Opening his eyes again, he stares into Kate's painted eyes.

He can't do it, Peter thinks, he can't put Neal in jail, even if it means giving up Adler.

It's never been a choice before. El never made it a choice, of course. But now that it is, the division between what he's always known as right and wrong and what he'll turn a blind eye to for Neal's sake has shrunk to nothing. The revelation rocks Peter to his core. Even if Neal is and has been in league with Adler, even if he finds the evidence to prove it, arresting Neal is not an option.

Peter hates it. He hates the realization. He can't bear to hurt Neal and he hates Neal for making him feel this way. Love... He isn't supposed to love anyone except El. Now Neal's made him betray everything, even if he never has to act on it.

"Damn it, Neal," he says into the silence of the studio.

There's no sign of where Neal has gone, but the paint is still glistening wet. Neal painted it overnight. Peter resists the sickening urge to destroy the portrait, as if he could wipe away Neal's feelings as easily as he could the image on the canvas. The urge to wreck something so beautiful rises through Peter like bile. He makes himself walk out of the studio and then the loft, before he adds vandalism to his growing list of regrets.

At the office, he calls Jones and Diana into his office and grimly tells them to add Neal's name and description to the BOLOs going out.

"You think Adler has him?" Jones asks, while Diana is quiet.

"I think Neal may be with him." Peter stops and summons an explanation that doesn't condemn Neal for them. "He doesn't know Adler's connected to Fowler." 

"If you say so, boss," Diana says. She doesn't believe it. Peter can't blame her. He doesn't either.

"I want to know where they both are. Nothing more. I'm alerted first," he orders. 

~*~

Neal flashes his visitor's badge and a happy grin at Joseph, one of the security guards on duty in the foyer, sets his armful of cardboard box down to be scanned and empties his pockets. He's been up to the twenty-first floor so many times in the last weeks he has it down to a routine. All the security guards know him at this point.

"Hey, has Peter come in yet?" he asks.

"Agent Burke came in an hour ago." 

The second guard, Denny, opens the unsealed box after the scan and makes a face at the contents. "That thing's just ugly." 

"Hey, my old girlfriend gave it to me," Neal tells him. He refills his pockets absently. The truth is, he never liked it either.

"Your old girlfriend had bad taste." 

"Yeah, she dated him," Joseph chimes in.

"Keep the day jobs, guys," Neal says with a tip of his hat, before scooping up the box and heading for the elevator bank. "Your future is not in comedy." 

He bumps the button for White Collar's floor with the point of his elbow and waits impatiently as the elevator rises, bouncing a little on his feet, euphoric with relief after committing to his choice.

The smile starts fading at the looks he gets from the agents in the bullpen as soon as he pushes his way through the glass doors and heads for Peter's office. It's completely gone by the time he's on the stairs. He feels like he has a bull’s-eye between his shoulder blades. Diana's closed off expression as she exits Peter's office and sees him destroys what's left of his good mood.

"I didn't think we'd see you here again," she says.

"What?" 

Diana flicks her dark gaze over him dismissively. "Peter said you'd be with Adler ‒ " 

"Peter said I was what!?" Neal yells before he can stop himself.

Diana's straightening, whether to smack Neal down or apologize for assuming something that infuriates him ‒ at least in part because for an hour or two last night it was a possibility ‒ as Peter pushes out of his office and stares at Neal.

"You're here," Peter nearly echoes Diana, but he sounds confused and hurt, not contemptuous.

"Vincent called me last night." Neal shifts the box in his arms higher. "This is what he wanted. I couldn't get to it until this morning." 

"Vincent Adler," Peter clarifies.

Neal looks at Peter and wants to curl up and die. "No, Vincent Van Gogh." He shakes his head, blinking back tears before anyone can see them. His voice nearly cracks, so he keeps going with the sarcasm. "Or maybe it was Vincent Price. I get them confused ‒ " 

"What is it?" Diana interrupts.

"It's Catherine the Great's music box," Neal explains. "Kate stole it from Vincent, he probably had someone steal it too." 

"How did you get it?" Peter asks.

Neal tips his head toward the conference room. "Can I put it down in there?" The box is heavy, but more than that, he wants to get out of the open and not tell this story on the upper level where everyone can see and hear them. The conference room has glass walls like Peter's office, but it's quieter and there are blinds.

"Yeah, let's go in there," Peter agrees. He switches his gaze to Diana. "Get Jones and cancel the BOLO on Neal." 

It's a cold shock to the system, hearing that come from Peter, a reminder that whatever he feels, it isn't reciprocated. Peter had a Be On Look Out issued for him? That certainly tells him how Peter really thinks about him, doesn't it? Neal hides the hurt behind an annoyed frown and marches into the conference room. He places the box on the table with his shoulders set and his jaw clenched. He buries the hurt, because after all, he deserves it: he did consider making a deal with Vincent.

"So how did you get it?" Peter asks from behind him.

Neal doesn't turn. "Kate gave it to me after she left Vincent." After Adler got tired of her and dropped her is a more accurate rendition, but he still automatically protects Kate.

"And you've had it all this time. Why'd Fowler kill Kate for it?" 

Neal squeezes his eyes shut before he answers and keeps them shut. "Because she didn't know where I hid it," he whispers. "I wouldn't tell her. She gave it to me and I didn't trust her not to take it back." He lets his head hang once he's said it, feeling like he's betrayed Kate or the love he had for her by admitting he refused her anything.

"Aw, damn it, Neal," he hears Peter say before two big, warm hands settle on his shoulders. "This isn't your fault." 

He should step away, keep Peter from giving away more than they've agreed to reveal ‒ which is nothing ‒ but he can't. Neal feels like he has to store up every touch, every instance of caring, because sooner or later, something will take it away. Elizabeth will realize how much Peter still loves her and they'll get back together.

"He expects me to call him today," he tells Peter, "I can set up a meet and you can arrest him when he comes for the music box, right?" 

"I'm not using you as bait." Peter's stern declaration warms some of the cold running through Neal's bones.

"He hired Fowler." 

"You're not an agent." 

"No, I'm the one Vincent contacted. He won't show for anyone else." Neal slides out from under Peter's hands ‒ regretting the loss of contact immediately ‒ so he can turn and face Peter. "He knows me. A ringer won't fool him." 

"Damn it ‒ " 

From the doorway, Hughes states, "He's right, Peter." Neal jumps nervously. Thoughts of Peter and Adler have him too distracted; Hughes let himself into the conference room without Neal even noticing. Hughes considers him and asks, "You're willing to do this?" 

Neal lifts his chin a little. "Yes. I'm willing." 

Hughes glances at the cardboard box. "And that's what Adler wants?" 

"It is." 

"It can't be worth enough to risk coming back to New York with Federal warrants out on him, can it?" 

That's true, but Neal is in no mood to relay Alex's wild story of stolen Nazi loot and sunken submarines. Adler may believe in it, Alex certainly did, but he doesn't. He wouldn't want any treasure stained with the real owners' blood if it did exist. Even Kate wouldn't have touched it. So Neal keeps it short. "He thinks something's hidden in it." 

"Is there?" 

"No idea, I've never been able to open it." 

"Hmph." Hughes gives Peter the stink-eye for a moment, then leaves the room.

"Neal," Peter says quietly, "the picture of Kate... " 

"Was goodbye." 

~*~

"Everyone ready for this?" Peter asks. Hughes occupies the head of the conference room table, excited enough by the possibility of bringing in Vincent Adler to involve himself directly in the case. Diana stands behind Neal's chair. She rolls her eyes at Peter, because he's as nervous as he's ever been about a case. Of course, he was never sleeping with someone involved before. He hopes to God neither Diana or Hughes ‒ Peter cringes at just the thought ‒ has a clue about that. Jones has his laptop set up and is ready to run the back trace on the call as soon as Neal makes it.

The damned music box ‒ which turns out to be an ugly monstrosity for all its historical value ‒ sits at the center of the conference table. The amber holds the morning light coming through the wall of windows and glows. Okay, Peter can admit, the amber itself is beautiful, it's just the design that he finds objectionable.

Neal himself glows a little ‒ Catherine the Great would have gobbled him up as fast as Kate the Great ‒ sitting with his cell phone in his hand, dressed in one of Byron Ellington's elegant suits. He chose a dark blue one today and a blinding white dress shirt with it.

"Yes, Peter, we're all ready," Neal says with just a touch of impatience. He's been edgy and snappish since he figured out Peter thought he'd gone to Adler to make a deal. Peter hasn't found an opportunity to apologize, though he knows that's more important than explaining why he thought it. Neal drums his fingers on the polished table top. They move hypnotically in and out of the splash of sunlight reflecting white off the surface.

Peter checks Jones. Jones nods, his hands poised over his keyboard.

"Let's do this." 

Neal taps Adler's contact number, Jones types, then gives them a thumbs up. Neal switches the phone to speaker. The door to the conference room is shut and locked; everyone inside knows better than to make any giveaway noises.

"Neal." Through the phone's small speaker, Vincent Adler's voice is sharper than in reality, but recognizably the same as in various recordings the Bureau has gathered. Peter knows it. Even if he didn't, Neal certainly does. Adler sounds oily to Peter, something he never realized before.

"Vincent," Neal greets him, poised and unruffled. "How was Argentina?" His brows are drawn together just a little, telegraphing his tension while he keeps it out of his voice. His hands spread wide, flat on the table, tensed against it, pressing down.

"The beef and the polo are both superb." 

"I can't imagine that being enough for a man like you. Where's the challenge?" 

"You always were smart," Adler murmurs in approval.

Neal almost smiles, but then his expression turns brittle. "I didn't feel that way when you left with Kate." 

"Sometimes a man miscalculates. Of course, I knew Kate's game from the beginning, but watching her try to have her cake and eat it too was just too delightful." 

Neal's frown deepens. "What cake?" 

Adler chuckles. "You, Neal. She wanted you and she wanted my money. So I made her choose." 

Neal winces visibly. Peter doesn't blame him. It shouldn't come as any surprise that Adler has a cruel streak. He's a wrecker of lives, a destroyer, after all, a greedy bastard who makes Kate look like a saint. He keeps talking and Peter listens for any clue that may slip through the taunts. "I was disappointed when you fell for her, of course, because I had my own plans, but you both provided more than enough entertainment to make up for that." 

Neal stiffens and Diana squeezes his shoulder. Jones' eyes are just a little wider than normal. He makes a curling motion though ‒ keep going ‒ to Neal. The trace is taking time. The phone number does them no good, it's undoubtedly a burner and will be tossed at the end of the call. They need to know where the phone is now, while Adler is using it.

"You ‒ what plans?" Neal asks.

"Are you really still so naive?" 

"I ‒ " 

"Come now, Neal. You flirted the first time we met, in that atrocious little gallery." 

"I flirted with all the customers. It was part of the job." A thread of cynicism colors Neal's soft words. "It wasn't anything more than that." 

"Too bad." 

"I don't understand." Neal's confusion appears real. Adler's knocking him off track.

"I had a passport waiting for you," Adler explains. "I meant to take you with me, of course. Kate interfered. And without you, she became boring." 

"Oh," Neal murmurs at last. "Me." He sounds friendlier, almost wistful, and there's no way to guess if he's acting or not. The shock on Neal's face makes Peter wonder if he would have gone with Adler. No matter what Neal says now, Peter knows Adler had a strong hold on him once.

"Delightful as this little stroll down history lane has been," Adler interrupts, "I believe you called to do some business with me." 

"Do you still have my paintings?" Neal blurts, abandoning the loose script Peter and Hughes went over with him earlier ‒ not that the conversation has held to it before, but Neal just gave away his weak point. Luckily, it isn't the case's weak point. "Did you destroy them? Because if you did, I'll ‒ " 

"Don't be ridiculous, Neal. Just name your price." 

Neal rubs his hands over his face and says, "You can't give me Kate back." 

Diana's hand is still locked tight on Neal's shoulder. Peter wishes he dared offer that much support, but he's not comfortable showing how close he is to Neal in front of Hughes. Not until the case is put away, along with Vincent Adler.

"No, but I can pay you very well to return the item she stole from me." 

"As long it includes my paintings." 

Adler laughs. Even from the phone's speakers, it makes Peter want to take a shower. After he locks Neal in a vault somewhere that Adler can never touch him.

"How much, Neal?" 

Neal breathes in hard through his nose, almost loud enough for the phone to pick up. A tense muscle flexes in his cheek, under skin gone pale. Some people go red, flush with anger. Neal goes pale and drawn taut and quiet. It's much more frightening; it's the anger of a thinking man. Like Iago, such men are dangerous. He names the amount they scripted without letting his fury color his voice at all. Peter is impressed; plenty of agents lack as much control as Neal has.

It hits Peter again, what a shame it is Kate went bad. She would have made a fantastic agent, on par with Diana. And Neal, if art didn't have a lock on the biggest part of him, could have been the best in the Bureau. Of course, what ifs and could have beens are pointless. The fantasy of working side by side with Neal is just that: a fantasy. This isn't permanent.

"All right," Adler agrees. "Tomorrow. I'll call you after lunch and we'll make the exchange." 

Jones makes the keep it going gesture again. Neal tries. "What, you can't even buy me lunch?" Neal says.

"I'll bring a picnic." 

The call ends.

"Location?" Peter snaps.

Jones shakes his head. "Sorry, boss. The cell was moving the whole time. He must've been in a car." 

"Damn it." 

Neal pushes the phone with his index finger. It skids a couple of inches. He looks exhausted and slightly sick, hunching over rather than sitting straight as he usually does. His eyes rise from the phone to meet Peter's gaze. They're as blue as crystal and Peter thinks how easy it is to shatter crystal. "I didn't know. How could I not know?" 

"You really didn't see he had the hots for you?" Diana asks as she comes around and takes seat next to Neal.

Neal shakes his head twice. "I ‒ I thought he wanted Kate." 

"Does it make a difference now?" Jones asks.

"No," Hughes declares before Peter can say anything ‒ and what he'd say wouldn't be that ‒ and nods to Neal. "Mr. Caffrey will wait for the call tomorrow. We'll have him wired for sound and GPS. When he meets with Adler, we'll wait to move in if it looks like Adler may incriminate himself for Ms. Moreau or anyone else's murder." He raises his eyebrows at everyone. "Agreed?" 

Everyone nods. 

~*~

"Don't get shot," Peter orders Neal as Jones fits him with the ballistic vest he'll wear under his dress shirt. The wireless mic is in a pen he'll have in his suit pocket, with a second, backup mic threaded into Neal's actual suit vest. Diana's busy with it, slicing open a seam with a razor blade so she can insert the bug.

"I won't, so tell me again why I have to wear this?" Neal replies. He makes a face. "It wrecks the lines of this suit." 

"Procedure," Peter snaps.

Jones pats Neals arm. "You're done, man. Get dressed." 

"What, the blinding pallor of my upper body getting to you?" Neal jokes.

"Yeah, it just drives me wild." 

"Diana, you'll protect my virtue, won't you?" Neal appeals to her.

"Of course," she replies, dead-pan. 

Neal pulls on his shirt and begins buttoning it. Peter makes himself look away from his nimble fingers. Otherwise, he's going to embarrass himself, remembering what Neal can do with his hands and Peter's body. Neal frowns over the way the ballistic vest stretches the material.

"It wouldn't be a problem if your shirt wasn't so tight anyway," Peter comments. He spins his wedding ring on his finger, an old habit.

"It wouldn't be a problem if I wore suits that fit like a burlap bag, but I prefer something tailored that fits me." 

"Are you two really arguing fashion?" Diana bursts out.

Neal glances up at her. "I think Peter's arguing against it, actually." He's been cool as ice all day, shrugging off any questions over how he's doing with a smile and a quip.

"We'll be in the surveillance van," Peter tells him.

Patiently, Neal replies, "I know. You've told me. Twelve times." 

"I only counted eleven," Jones mutters.

"You were out of the room once," Diana fake whispers.

"All right, enough," Peter cuts them both off. "Try to remember, Neal's a civilian. I'm just trying to reassure him he'll have back-up." 

"Peter, I'm not worried." Neal gives him a bright smile. His eyes are clear as water, framed in soot-dark lashes, and unreadable.

Peter shakes his head. "Yeah, that's what worries me." 

~*~

It's always the docks or an empty warehouse. Never a nice restaurant, the park, or a good hotel room, Neal snarks to himself as he parks June's Jaguar and gets out, and why couldn't Adler be a little more original instead of taking his cue from the movies? He doesn't see the surveillance van. Either the Bureau has improved their ability to hide it or they're stuck in traffic somewhere behind on the route he took after Adler gave him the address of the meet.

He acknowledges that seeing what the Jaguar could do when pushed the gas pedal probably contributed to that.

A scan around him doesn't yield any sign of anyone else either, but the sky is cloudless blue and the water is a shifting blue mirror one shade darker. Even the urban decay holds a kind of beauty ‒ if Neal painted it how he saw it. He mixes the paints in his mind, finding just the right sepia tinged gray for the cracked pavement, the right brush stroke to replicate the loose grit, the layer on layer of tire tracks laid down, the tarry shadows in the cracks, the way the sun still finds smooth surfaces to reflect from. He can't help it; he can't look at anything without framing it as a painting. No matter how ugly, he's always found a beauty in catching the reality of it, in sharing what he sees, the familiar made new with recognition.

The amber music box sits in the Jaguar's trunk. A tracker has been glued to it. Neal prefers not to contemplate the just in case that would result in the Bureau needing to follow it.

When Adler's arrested and tried, the music box will go back to Russia. He wishes he could keep it, except Denny and Joseph are right: it is ugly.

The air smells of dirty water and diesel, the skyscrapers shine silver, gold, and blue, angles against a few misty, unraveling clouds, and the sound of gulls drifts from the air, querulous and melancholy.

Hands in his pockets, Neal leans against the Jaguar's hood and lifts his face to the sun, eyes half closed against the glare, so he hears tires and the engine before he sees the sleek black limo come to a stop next to him. A tinted window slides down and Adler leans forward enough to be seen. A tingle starts at Neal's fingertips and rushes through him. Nerves. He feels so perfectly alive and in this moment that he finally understands Kate and why she couldn't give the con up. This feeling could be addictive. It could get in your blood.

A glance at his watch shows it's a quarter past one. Neal tips Byron's hat toward Adler. "Did you bring me something to eat?" He has to stay cool and, most of all, he has to act like he doesn't know the FBI is watching and listening. If they are. Neal doesn't dare look for them. Adler would see.

The driver steps out and opens the door for Adler, then retreats back behind the limo's wheel.

Adler exits the backseat holding two crystal flutes. "Champagne." 

Neal takes one flute, lifts it, and toasts, "To Kate." 

Adler laughs but lifts his flute too before drinking.

It's good champagne. No surprise. Adler always demanded the best. "Louis Roederer Cristal. You opened a bottle when you bought the Ellington," Neal says, nostalgic despite himself. "1989." It was expensive then. Now, a case must go for an obscene price. Adler showed him so much. Without the things Neal learned from Adler, Kate would never have looked twice at him.

"You remember." 

Neal watches the bubbles rise through the delicately-shaded champagne, remembering that first taste of effervescent possibility, when it felt like Vincent Adler had plucked him from the muck of his life and given him wings. The trick, he thinks, is to never forget how bad the fall felt when Adler's wings proved as false as the man himself.

Adler looks at Neal's suit and the Jaguar and comments in amusement, "You've landed on your feet. I guess you learned something from Kate and me after all." 

"An appreciation for good wine at least," Neal acknowledges.

"You've always been a natural." 

He has to look away, out across the deceptively placid water, because it still feels good when Adler compliments him. Surely that's a worse betrayal of Kate than loving Peter. Thinking of Peter eases Neal's nerves, though. Peter's somewhere close, listening, and he'll swoop in and take Adler down as soon as Neal gets him to say enough. He just needs to tease an admission from Adler. Playing up the attraction he hadn't wanted to acknowledge back then will do it, even if it ends with Adler and him both saying things he'd rather no one ever heard.

"If I'd known you were an option... " Neal stops the words and shrugs. "I'm not sure. I probably would have run," he finishes ruefully. It's only the truth. The rest of the truth is that if Kate had asked him to go with her and Adler, he would have gone, instead of waking up to news reports of a joint FBI and SEC investigation of Adler's faltering empire, empty offices, an empty bed and an emptied bank account ‒ Kate was nothing if not thorough ‒ and his dream life disappearing like a puff of smoke.

Adler contemplates him thoughtfully.

Neal finishes his champagne and sets the flute on the roof of Adler's limo. "Let's get this over with. I want to see my paintings." 

Adler gestures to the nearest warehouse. "They're here. Did you think I'd destroy them?" 

It's easy to shrug and say, "You proved you can surprise me years ago." 

He walks beside Adler to a surprisingly unpadlocked door and inside, blinking his eyes into adjustment once they step through the doorway. The warehouse is dim, but navigable, dirty windows high on the walls offering illumination. Once his eyes have adapted, a surge of anger burns through Neal. He bolts away from Adler to where his canvases are tossed carelessly on the dirty cement floor. Some are face down, others leaning against cracked wooden crates. He doesn't register Adler coming up behind him as he crouches and begins straightening and checking each one.

Neal's aware he's a little crazy in that moment, running his hands over his paintings the way a parent checks a wayward child, relieved and worried at the same time.

A hiss of fury escapes Neal when he spots a frame splintered and broken by careless handling. "You sonova ‒ " He surges to his feet and spins, only to have Adler grab his shoulders and hold him. The crazy thing is that Adler's smiling. Not a mean smile, either, but one filled with something Neal thinks might be real fondness, real amusement. It stops whatever else Neal means to say.

So does the kiss, though it's only a closed mouth brush of Adler's warm lips over Neal's, lasting a mere second. The scent of Adler's cologne, unchanged after all the years, surrounds him. He doesn't have time to draw away or respond.

He blurts the first thing that crosses his mind once Adler lets him go. "Did you kiss Kate before you killed her?" 

Adler laughs and chucks Neal beneath his chin. "A kiss goodbye, of course." 

"Why?" Neal asks simply, then clarifies, "Why not kill me too?" Adler has to know he either has the music box in the Jaguar or can tell him where it is, but so far there hasn't been even the hint of a threat. Could it really be because Adler feels something toward him or just that Neal, unlike Kate, never stole from him? The situation confuses him; it isn't what he anticipated. He can't read Adler at all in the dim light of the warehouse interior.

"Kate was glass," Adler says. "Cut glass, crystal even, but you're the real thing." 

"I can't even... " 

"Show me the music box, Neal, and I'll show you the money." 

Still disbelieving and eying Adler skeptically, Neal leads him back outside and pops open the Jag's trunk. He waits while Adler looks the box over, then asks, "It's the one Alex Hunter was after, isn't it?" 

Adler looks up and over the lid of the trunk to Neal. "You know about that?" A darkness moves behind his eyes, suspicion like the shadow of a shark in the water.

Neal shrugs uneasily. "I knew Alex. She told a crazy story. I never believed it." He takes another breath and says, "You killed her too, didn't you? Why?" 

"Curiosity, Neal, killed the cat," Adler warns him.

"Satisfaction brought it back?" Neal offers with a weak smile. He berates himself silently for nearly forgetting Vincent Adler killed Kate and Alex and had Garrett Fowler killed too, along with no doubt planning to kill Neal.

"Only in a fairytale." 

"So tell me a story," Neal prompts him, leaning against the Jag's hood and wondering exactly when the FBI is going to move in. He supposes they're waiting for Adler to state his guilt rather than simply not deny it. He'll keep trying until they show. It's all he can do, after all.

Either that or they're waiting for Adler to kill him.

Try, Neal reminds himself, and swallows. Peter will stop him.

Wow, he really hopes Peter will stop him. He doesn't want to die to be with Kate now that he's let her go.

"I think you know the story, Neal," Adler says. He lifts the music box out of the trunk and carries it to the limo. The driver opens its trunk when Adler arrives at the rear of the limo. He sets it down and when he steps back he has a gun in his hand, aimed at Neal.

Neal would retreat, but he's already against the Jag.

"Really, Vincent, you're going to shoot me too?" he says with a bit of panic pitching his voice up. He raises his hands. "Why? What could I do to you?" 

"I can't trust an enemy at my back, Neal," Adler tells him. "I do regret this. I like you and you're so talented ‒ those paintings will be worth a fortune someday, as a matter of fact I believe I'll keep them, but you have to go." 

Trying not to hyperventilate, because he dislikes guns anyway, but especially guns aimed at him, Neal licks his lips and says, "Well, at least you're pulling the trigger yourself. I hate the idea of getting killed by a lackey. It's so... tacky." 

His inadvertent rhyme draws a chuckle from Adler. "I really do wish I'd got you in bed, Neal." 

"I'd say you still could, but frankly the gun's a real turn off." The muzzle on the boxy gun is huge, Neal swears, and he can't take his eyes off it. "I don't really get turned on by danger." 

"What about Kate?" 

"Much," Neal amends.

"Like you said about poor Fowler and his wife," Adler says and he gestures with the gun for Neal to walk ahead of him and back into the warehouse, "you'll be with her soon." 

Neal shakes his head at the thought. Just when he was accepting he could be with Peter instead. "Life is a bitch," he mutters. "He pulled the trigger on Kate, I hope he burns in hell, alone." 

"And that, Neal, is why I can't leave you alive." They've stopped in the bare, open space at the center of the warehouse. "Fowler didn't shoot Kate. I did. Because you're right, she deserved more than a lackey." Adler stops and lets Neal process this. "I did use his gun, though. I thought it would be useful leverage if he ever turned on me. Unfortunately, it made him a liability instead." 

There it is, an unmistakable confession of guilt. Neal presses on anyway, raising his voice with anger to hide any noise from the agents led by Peter who are infiltrating the warehouse behind Adler. "Did you kill Alex yourself too?" 

"As a man should," Adler admits. He lifts the gun. "I'll make this quick." 

Peter is directly behind Adler now, with a gun aimed at him.

"FBI! Put down your gun!" Peter yells.

Adler flinches and pulls the trigger. 

~*~

Peter has never shot anyone in the back. It goes against his concept of right and wrong, even if he is acting as an officer of the law. The hesitation costs him everything. He orders Adler to put down his gun.

Instead, Adler shoots Neal.

Peter fires so closely after him the report of Adler's Beretta and his Bureau-issue Glock merge into one sound. Neal falls to the floor before the sharp echo bounces from the high ceiling. Peter's heart slams inside his chest, but he can't look at Neal yet. Training takes over and he moves to disarm Adler, who is writhing and screaming on the floor, blood pumping dark from his shoulder through his clutching fingers.

Peter pushes the Beretta out of Adler's reach with his shoe, keeping an eye on where it is pointed even now. Beretta's are well made, but there's no way to know if Adler's has been customized. Some guns have a hair trigger and even that much jostling could result in it firing.

"Diana!" he yells. He keeps his Glock trained on Adler. There's no guarantee the Beretta is Adler's only weapon. "Get a bus here! Someone secure the evidence and ‒ " 

"We're on it, boss," Diana tells him. "You should ‒ " 

"Someone check Caffrey," Peter grits out. He isn't ready to holster his weapon. He could pull the trigger again and finish Adler. Even staring down at the wounded criminal, Peter's still seeing Neal stagger back before his legs went out from under him. The images replay and overlay everything he's doing. He can only ignore it and the need to go to Neal by holding onto procedure.

Adler sears the air with a litany of vicious obscenities and threats. If he has energy enough to do that, Peter figures he'll live. Adler has no idea how lucky he is. Peter wanted ‒ still does ‒ to kill him. He shot to wound only so the bullet wouldn't exit Adler and go into Neal.

Neal's down anyway.

Peter sees the impact of Adler's bullet stagger Neal again. It's hard to breathe.

He has never wanted to kill anyone before.

He lets Diana take away his gun, per standard post-shooting protocol. His shoulders slump. The warehouse is a hive of noisy activity now.

"Someone remember to read him rights," Peter says. "I want two agents with him all the time. This guy's too slippery to take any chances." 

"Gotcha," Diana replies.

He scrubs his hand over his face, finding wetness, but it's sweat and not tears. Those will have to wait. When he gets out of the way of the medics coming in, it's like a camera shot pulling back as Peter becomes aware of everything else going on.

"Hey, I feel like someone ran a car over my chest, but I'm fine," he hears.

Peter lets himself turn slowly and finds the speaker sitting on the edge of a crate. Neal is fruitlessly batting an EMT's hands away from his shirt buttons. He sounds a little breathless, but he's clearly not really hurt. Peter watches as Jones steps in and tells Neal to let the EMT do his job and Neal's stripped of his shirt along with his vest and coat before the ballistic vest is removed. He can make out the blackened hole where Adler's bullet penetrated the material of the vest and hit one of the armor plates inside.

Neal winces as Jones and the medic take the vest off and flinches harder when the man begins checking the impact point on his chest. He's already bruising and moving slowly.

Adler isn't a great shot. Maybe because he panicked. The bullet would have missed Neal's heart and torn through his lung. But without the vest, Adler's shot still could have killed Neal. Peter gags quietly and tastes bile at the back of his tongue. He wishes he'd killed Adler.

He's sweat-slick, sick, and cold with residual terror. His hands look steady, but it feels like everything inside him is shaking.

He thinks, _I almost got Neal killed_. 

It's unacceptable. He can't function like this. El never made him afraid the way Neal did as he led Adler on.

Neal looks up from watching the medic checking him and meets Peter's gaze. A blinding smile lights his face.

"Peter!" 

Peter turns away and walks out. 

~*~

"So how is Neal?" El asks after Peter sits down opposite her. Their twice weekly lunches have become more a once or twice a month thing, but neither of them is willing to fall completely out of touch. There's still too much love between them for that. It's a different love than before and she's eager to hear how her favorite artist is now that Kate's killers are all behind bars. She wishes Peter had brought Neal with him today, so she could talk to him herself.

"Fine," Peter answers. Peter's never been a chatterbox, but that's laconic even for him. El narrows her eyes, but sets aside her worries in favor of scanning the menu their waiter hands her. They've dined at this restaurant before, so she gives her order then and there to save time; Peter follows suit. Peter's order is for the cheapest, blandest thing on the menu, of course. As always, his little foibles amuse her. It's the big things that drove her away. Wanting to save a little money or stick with the safe choices never bothered her.

Before.

"He must be relieved," she ventures.

"I'm sure." 

Oh, Peter is definitely evading. El refuses to let him get away with it; not when it involves Neal too. She hasn't known Neal that long, but it isn't necessary. Peter has an amazing facility to hurt people who love him, despite being a good man.

"You don't know," she declares.

"I haven't seen him since the arrest. Diana and Jones are handling returning the paintings Adler had stolen." Peter picks up the chilled crystal goblet of water, sets it back down and wipes the moisture transfer from his fingertips onto his still folded linen napkin. The dampness turns the snowy fabric gray. El hasn't seen him so fidgety since the first time he had to cancel dinner plans to fly across the country. Come think of it, he'd been chasing Kate that time too.

"Why?" 

"Why what?" 

"Don't play the idiot with me, Peter Burke. Why haven't you seen Neal?" El demands.

"I had to shoot a man." 

Vincent Adler. So what? El wants to snap. As if anyone would be sorry if Adler had ended up dead.

"So they put you on the beach for couple of days," she snaps, using the Bureau's own slang for the time Peter, like any agent, has to take off after a shooting. "You couldn't see Neal then?" 

"He's a material witness," Peter says, as stiff as if he were testifying in front of a shooting committee, " and it could have been interpreted as interfering." 

"That is complete bull ‒ " El only stops because the waiter is back with their meals. Airing dirty laundry for some twenty-something actor wannabe will not improve the situation. Instead, she tucks her temper away, thanks the waiter, and busies herself eating her food.

Peter does the same. He, no doubt, hopes this is the end of the conversation about Neal. He should know he is shit out of luck, El thinks, watching him while she eats. He's thinner and older looking than just two weeks ago. It seems impossible that their lives have changed so swiftly. Only a month ago, she only knew Neal Caffrey as a name in Kate Moreau's file and remarrying Peter seemed more and more likely. Now, she's pissed off not because Peter has a boyfriend, but because he seems determined to dump Neal.

Perhaps she needs to order a glass of wine.

Or a barrel.

She sips her water instead and tries to fathom the inner working's of Peter's mind. Nothing makes sense. It seems unlikely, but, "Did Neal do something ‒ " 

"No." 

"Then why are you giving up?" 

"It's better," Peter mutters. He has abandoned his meal, just stirring bits of it with his fork, occasionally making a tine screech over the fine china. "I still love you. I can't do that to him." 

El can't stand it and slaps his hand. "Stop that. ‒ You don't. You're using me as an excuse. Stop that too." 

Peter doesn't even raise his eyes from the messy plate before him. "Can we just drop it?" 

"No." 

"Please." 

"Neal's the best thing that ever happened to you," El snaps in frustration. "He can match you in every way you want and he's crazy about you. You're smart enough to know that, so why are you screwing this up?" 

Peter folds his napkin and set it beside his plate of untouched food. "He's over a decade younger than me, he's still mourning Kate, and ‒ " 

"And you're so scared he'll hurt you that you'd rather hurt him," she states. Peter has never disappointed her so badly, not even when she divorced him, not even when he showed up weeks ago talking of nothing but Neal Caffrey. She shakes her head. "Neal's so used to being tossed aside when he's not convenient, he's just taking it." 

"He'll get over it," Peter mutters, sullen the way he can only be when he knows he's in the wrong and refusing to admit it.

El smiles at him, sharp as a knife, the way she smiles at her suppliers right before she cuts them off at the knees if they've tried to gip Mitchell Premier Events. "You're right," she tells him. "He will. He won't forget being hurt, but some day he won't love you anymore." Time to twist the knife. "Someone else will love him ‒ he's easy to love ‒ and be with him. And, Peter?" 

"El ‒ " 

"You'll be alone." She doesn't sugarcoat it, even as her heart breaks for him a little, even as she's formulating her own plans for Neal. If Peter won't take care of him, she will. Also, Neal will be a fantastic addition to the business, for as long as she can hold him. It won't be long. Very soon, Neal Caffrey's name will be known to everyone in the art world and he'll fly free of them all. But in the mean time, she thinks a visit to his loft studio is the next item on her agenda.

And then she's going to call Avery Lindquist and accept his invitation to dinner. She's not going to make Peter's mistakes.

"El." 

"The saddest thing of all is that you'll deserve it." 

~*~

The knock on the studio's door barely registers. The next brush stroke fills Neal's mind instead. Noises aren't important, less even than voices, and he's getting better at ignoring even those. He can't bring himself to ignore June, though, or Mozzie, so sometimes he stops, sits and eats the food they put in front of him, lets Mozzie shove him in the shower. He can't sleep on the bed, but there's a chaise lounge in one corner of the studio that Byron sometimes used to pose a model; Neal passes out on it when he can't stay awake any longer.

He wakes with a soft blanket tucked around him every time, Mozzie's doing.

He knows he's scaring the hell out of his friend, but Neal can't feel sorry. If he lets himself feel that, he'll start feeling everything else, and that isn't a prospect he sees himself surviving. Right now he isn't dealing well, but at least he's dealing. The first week after Peter walked away from him he lived in perfect denial, sure that Peter would arrive at the loft at any moment. Of course he sent Diana or Clinton to take Neal's statement and everything else, he told himself, since Neal and he were too close for Peter to remain objective and Peter is always scrupulous in that way.

Denial gives way to an empty kind of acceptance after Diana calls with the news his paintings are being returned to him. They aren't necessary to the case against Adler.

Neal changes the angle of his brush, narrowing the line of Mars Black mixed with Hunter Green and Payne's Grey he's tracing into the cityscape he's working on. No more faces. He's tried, but he keeps turning everything into a picture of Peter. Pictures of the city's streets and parks occupy him now. A dozen lean against the walls, technically finished, though the oils aren't fully dry where Neal used an impasto technique to get the texture and light play he wants.

Byron's studio has fantastic light, but Neal works fast because all the windows in the world don't help when the quality of the light changes at the end of the day. Sunset adds a tinge of red to everything that throws him off the dull gray overcast he's replicating. It would be smarter to leave the painting and finish it the next day, but then Neal might have to stop and think about something that isn't painting. Getting through the days and nights means working until he drops.

If his hand wants to shake that means he's almost there.

A small hand closing with gentle determination around his wrist wrests him out of the zone. Neal stares at the color painted on Elizabeth's nails and tries to formulate how he'd recreate it on canvas.

"Neal, sweetie, stop," Elizabeth says. She plucks the brush out of his hand and sets it aside.

Neal opens his mouth to protest, whether her interference or the careless treatment of a camel hair brush, and stops. The last person he wants to see is Elizabeth, not because he doesn't like her, but she has Peter and seeing her is a reminder that he doesn't and won't ever. He can't even lift his eyes from her hand on his wrist, afraid she'll see how desperately jealous he is, when he has no right.

He knew every time Peter touched him that Peter still wanted Elizabeth more. Pathetic as it was, Neal was still willing to take what he could get. He still would, if Peter offered, as much as that shames him. Elizabeth is a friend but he'd still let Peter cheat on her with him, if Peter were that kind of man.

He hates himself and this is why he can't let himself think about anything but painting.

"When was the last time you ate, anyway?" 

He has no idea. "Mozzie made me eat something. Breakfast?" 

"When?" Elizabeth sounds impatient and concerned; Neal keeps his gaze down. He lets her tug him out of the studio and into the loft. "Sit, you're going to eat and listen to me." 

Neal obeys because it's less exhausting than protesting. He risks a look up when she turns away to check in the refrigerator and then start something heating in a pot on the stove. Just like every time they've met, from that morning when he showed at her business to every lunch shared with her and Peter since, she looks wonderful. It's all too easy to see why Peter still loves her. If Neal wasn't in love with Peter, he could fall for Elizabeth easily.

It would be just as self-destructive, too.

He concentrates on the soup and the crusty bread Elizabeth sets down in front of him, alternating spoonfuls with tearing off pieces of the bread, failing to really taste either. Elizabeth seats herself opposite him. Head down, Neal sees her arms folded and resting on the table. Alizarin crimson, he thinks, that's the color he'd start with to get the color of her fingernails.

"You need to snap out of this," Elizabeth says. "Peter's a good man, but he's terrible at relationships. Much as I love him and always will, I wouldn't have him back on a plate with caviar and diamonds." 

The spoon drops back into the soup with a messy splash. It occurs to Neal he just dropped it. He looks up at Elizabeth's face. She looks worried enough to make him want to run away.

"You're not... ?" He doesn't recognize his voice. He hasn't said much lately. June and Mozzie accept nods, head shakes, and shrugs. It sounds like his throat has been scoured with steel wool. Feels like it too. Helplessly, Neal finishes with a pathetic question, "Why?" 

Elizabeth ignores the soup splashes and reaches over the table to take Neal's paint-stained hands in hers. Her grip is firm and determined. "I don't think even he really knows," she tells him.

So it's just him, Neal realizes. He's not enough or he's too much, too tied to the criminal side of life or to Kate or to his painting. Too male, maybe. Peter never acts like he cares about being labeled, but that doesn't mean he doesn't. It's probably different for an FBI agent than an artist. Artists can get away with a lot, including being gay, if it makes for a good story and they have enough talent.

This is worse than thinking Peter got back together with Elizabeth. Neal thought Peter loved Elizabeth more. Turns out Peter simply doesn't love him enough ‒ at all ‒ so he can't even comfort himself he would have been second choice.

Kate never hurt him this much. Kate _dying_ didn't hurt this much, he thinks, aching at the betrayal.

"How long are you going to bury yourself in painting?" Elizabeth asks, yanking Neal's mind back to the loft and her presence.

"Until June throws me out, I guess," he replies.

"She's never going to do that." 

He shrugs, certain June will grow sick of him sooner or later too. Even Mozzie probably just wants access to the accounts Kate left for Neal. No one stays, everyone lies.

"But you can't stay in this apartment the rest of your life. Even if you're going to do nothing except paint, you have to go out and see something to paint," Elizabeth goes on.

"I have a good memory," Neal tells her.

Elizabeth ignores his rejoinder, though she narrows her eyes and glares, and asks, "Remember when I said I should hire you?" 

"Sure." 

"I want to hire you." 

"Seriously?" This a joke or something, Neal thinks, but just that, the unexpectedness of it, serves to knock a hole in the dull haze of misery that surrounds him. He squints at Elizabeth, trying to read her, but she seems to have said exactly what she meant. He almost laughs, because he isn't sure his life could be any stranger.

She rolls her eyes before meeting Neal's skeptical gaze. "Yes. My assistant is taking maternity leave in a couple of weeks. Even if she weren't, I could still use your help." 

"Does... Peter know?" He doesn't want to see Peter now. Not until his heart scabs over. Ironic, because only an hour ago, he ached to see or talk to Peter again.

"It's none of his business," Elizabeth says, "what I or you do. Is it?" 

"I guess not," he replies. Exhaustion drags at him. Maybe if he sleeps he could not think or feel anything for a while.

"Then you'll take the job?" 

She's not going to take no for an answer, Neal realizes.

"I promise, I will work you until you collapse," Elizabeth adds. "I remember how it feels, even if I'm the one who did the leaving." Her eyes are sharp and knowing and filled with sympathy.

Neal summons a weak smile. "How can I say no?" 

~*~

Mozzie means to hate Elizabeth Burke. It's simple; she's part of the life and people who have wounded his best friend. He won't hate her the way he hates Special Agent Peter Burke ‒ he has every intention of wrecking that man starting with his career and continuing into every aspect of his life so that he ends up alone and hated by everyone in his pathetic existence, it's just going to take some time to orchestrate and he's currently preoccupied with keeping Neal from spiraling any further into the dark place ‒ but it is necessary to hate her, since she's probably going to get caught in the collateral damage of whatever he does to Burke.

Even meeting her in person wouldn't change his mind, not even pleas and begging, but walking into Neal's loft and finding him there and not hiding from the world and himself in the studio does it. Neal, who makes looking terrible look good, has showered and shaved, dressed in something other than a paint-stained t-shirt and khakis, and there are dishes in the sink proving he ate, all without Mozzie forcing him. It's a sea change, and if the misery remains in his eyes, darkening the blue, at least Neal's coping again. Mozzie knows the pain won't disappear for a long time. He can live with it as long as Neal can.

The fear he's been carrying around in his gut lets go finally and he almost staggers.

"Ready to rejoin the world?" he asks, pretending a lack of concern.

"Elizabeth just hired me," Neal explains.

"Burke's wife?" Mozzie's horrified. The last thing Neal needs is Burke and his wife rubbing their happiness in his face.

"Ex," Neal says, with an air of melancholy, and adding, "Don't worry so much." Proving he did register Mozzie's concern the last couple weeks, which is frustrating and hopeful at the same time. "He didn't dump me to get her back." 

"Oh." 

He'll have to change his mind about Elizabeth Burke if she's been able to make this much difference in Neal with one visit and a job offer.

On the other hand, he adores June Ellington from the minute he meets her on the way up to Neal's loft and studio the first time. She's the epitome of class with a perfect soupçon of wickedness. Once the filthy feds return Neal's pictures, it isn't long before Mozzie and June have their heads together, planning Neal's future and, incidentally, Mozzie's as well.

June knows art, along with the art world, and she goes through Neal's paintings with bright eyes and soft sounds of approval.

"I knew I was right," she declares.

"He's amazing, isn't he?" 

They both keep their eyes away from the portrait of Kate standing in one corner of the studio. It makes Mozzie miss his old protégée while reminding June of losing her Byron.

"Yes," she agrees, "and we're going to make him famous." June's eyes gleam and when she's done laying out her plans for Neal's career, Mozzie can only nod. It may be cynical to play on the drama and tragedy of Neal's relationship with Kate and her death, but they both know everyone will eat it up with a spoon. It won't hurt that Kate was beautiful and Neal's gorgeous. It's the art world after all: it is all about appearances.

"You would have made a great con," he tells her sincerely.

That makes June laugh. "My dear, what do you think the art world is but a big con?" 

Mozzie switches his regular glasses for a set with heavier, black plastic frames and squints at June, donning an expression of squeezed annoyance that will be part of his newest persona. "My name is Robert French," he tells her. "I have the privilege of acting as Neal Caffrey's agent. I know you're going to be happy with my efforts too." From now on, anyone wanting to sell to June or a chance at buying or even displaying any of Byron's unsold works will have to deal with Mozzie.

Robert French that is.

If that means arranging and attending a showing for an up-and-coming artist that June has given her imprimatur to, they both know the cognoscente will bend over ‒ forward or backward ‒ to stay on her good side. After that, Neal's own talent will carry him.

June holds out her hand and lets Mozzie kiss it European-fashion.

"I think this is the start of a beautiful friendship," she says, laughing.

Now all they have to do is convince Neal. Mozzie admits Elizabeth is a great addition to their cabal when she bulldozes all of Neal's objections at one memorable breakfast.

Mozzie really could hate Elizabeth, if she wasn't so close to perfect, and instead, he ends up despising Peter Burke even more than he did before, now that he knows the man hurt her as well as Neal. 

~*~

"He sent an invitation for me and Christie," Diana says. Peter doesn't pay any attention as he migrates between his office and the break room in search of enough caffeine to get him through the rest of the day. Diana's perched on the corner of Jones' desk, a file folder in one hand, talking idly while Jones runs a computer search. Peter would reprimand them, but Jones' attention is on his computer and he obviously is working and Diana is just as obviously waiting for him to finish. Agents are allowed to have friendly conversations while they work, even if Peter hasn't felt very friendly toward anyone in weeks.

"Got one too," Jones says absently.

Peter dismisses their conversation and passes them.

Diana has come around to the other side of Jones' desk and is reading over his shoulder when Peter returns, coffee mug in hand. "Black tie," Jones says. "More trouble than I want to go to just to see a bunch of paintings." 

Peter slows, listening despite himself.

"Besides, I've seen all his paintings before they were returned." 

"You just don't want to put on a tuxedo." 

Diana glances at Peter and straightens, her expression becoming more solemn and professional, and asks, innocently, "So are you going to Neal's opening tomorrow night?" 

His fingers tighten on his coffee mug ‒ a real mug and not paper or it would be crushed ‒ but Peter thinks he keeps his expression from giving too much away. "No." 

No invitation, but he isn't going to explain that to his agents, or the reasons he decided to drive Neal away. He's deluding himself when he says 'decided'. Peter reacted at Adler's arrest and he's been too stubborn and frightened to examine his motives or admit he regrets anything since.

Elizabeth is right. He deserves to be alone.

Peter manages a polite nod for his two subordinates and continues back up to his own office, where the first thing he does is open his laptop and search out everything he can find on Neal's upcoming opening. It's enough to impress him; Mozzie and June have outdone themselves for Neal.

If the opening isn't a huge success, though, Peter thinks, Neal will be devastated. He won't turn to Mozzie or June, though, not after they've invested so much into it.

Peter can't name anyone Neal would turn to, except him, and he's removed himself.

There's no reason to think Neal will fail, of course. But Peter can't stop worrying over worst case scenarios.

No, the truth is, he can't stop worrying about, and caring about, Neal.

He tells himself to stop.

Twenty minutes before the end of the work day ‒ and it's one of the quiet days no one ends up working late ‒ he stops by Jones' desk and asks him for the invitation to Neal's art showing. Jones gives him a knowing look, but says nothing except, "Tell Neal congratulations from me." 

~*~

He almost backs out at the last minute, but Peter's already in the monkey suit and knows that the longer he lets himself delay, the less likely he is to succeed. What he threw away won't be there to save much longer. If it still is. It's all on Neal now, unfair as that is. All Peter can do is lay himself out there, beg forgiveness, and let Neal make the decision.

If he has hope, it's because Neal has a generous heart. He forgave Kate, over and over, so Peter hopes Neal will give him another chance.

He'll beg if he needs to.

Up the steps, in through the doors, and presenting the hand written invitation to the gala opening for Neal Caffrey takes Peter maybe five minutes. The evidence of El's hand shines everywhere in the high-end gallery, from the warm lighting that mimics candlelight without a headache inducing flicker, to the omnipresent waiters and waitresses circulating unobtrusively with trays of champagne flutes and superb finger food to the live, classical music drifting through the rooms. Everything is superb, everything in perfect taste, every single aspect of the venue calculated to both give the attendees an exquisite experience and at the same time highlight and accentuate the quality of Neal's work.

The portrait of Kate reigns over everything, resting unframed and unadorned on a polished wooden easel and a wide, round, brown-veined marble plinth. Hidden lights illuminate her, so cleverly placed no one can throw a shadow over the painting, wherever or however they move. No one can pass by without stopping, not simply to stare or analyze, but in a nearly hypnotic fascination. The painting mesmerizes. It captures Kate Moreau, even some hint of her soul, and yet she's still an enigma holding out the promise that she could be known, if you only look long and hard enough. That... that was Kate. Neal is the only one who could have painted her like that and got her right.

Peter doesn't linger to look at her though.

Beyond the portrait, walking through rooms that display Neal's previous work, Peter hears snatches of talk. The story, elided and delicately spun, then propagated by word of mouth, has captured the minds and hearts ‒ of those that have the latter ‒ of the art world. Who doesn't love a tale of doomed and tragic love? The drama appeals, so do the illegalities and danger, and even Kate's absence is a plus, because anyone who looks at Neal and wants him can fantasize that they could have him without her in the way.

It isn't true, but the fantasy is still fun, Peter imagines. Of course, maybe he's harboring his own fantasy. Neal may punch him as soon as he sees him ‒ another nugget of gossip for the gala ‒ or, even if he lets Peter have his say, Neal may still just walk away. Peter really has no good excuse beyond cowardice.

Neal lost Kate to death. Peter drove Elizabeth away with his own mistakes. He doesn't get to compare their losses anymore. If he does, Neal should hit him.

He sees Diana and Christie through the crowd, both in formal cocktail gowns, Christie wearing red and Diana in something silky and saffron yellow, looking splendid. June is chatting with them, but Neal isn't there. Peter moves through the crowd, listening with half his attention to the uniformly approving and impressed chatter, while trying to find Neal among the press of people. He sees Elizabeth telling a waiter something that turns his face pale as paper. The sleek skirt of her deep blue gown provides a glimpse of leg when she turns away from her victim. She catches sight of Peter and, if anything, her expression becomes fiercer.

The waiter scurries away and Peter doesn't blame him. Elizabeth on a tear is a terror.

Finally, he finds Neal, lithe in a vintage black tuxedo complete with bow-tie and waistcoat, sandwiched between an art critic a full head shorter than him and a supermodel thin woman in four inch heels that make her taller than Neal and possibly taller than Peter. Neal is charming them both, laying it on thick, letting the woman hold on to his arm and the man rest a hand at his back. Peter would like to remove their hands, if not from their arms, at least from Neal's body. He breathes in deep and stuffs the jealousy and anger into a locked-box. Neal's a free agent and even if he weren't he isn't behaving any differently than Elizabeth sometimes does with demonstrative clients.

They pause in front of the picture of Adler, the one that makes Peter wonder what the man would think if he saw himself through Neal's work, since it wasn't among the pieces that were stolen. On the whole, Peter suspects Adler would be pleased with it; it's extraordinary art and if it highlights Adler's Machiavellian and venal sides, it also shows his intelligence, the force of personality, the ruthlessness and the charm. Adler's fist is closed around cherub-shaped key, vise-like.

"A modern day marauder," the critic says. "I believe you know him?" 

"I worked for him, once," Neal replies, elusive as ever, "I'm not sure anyone could say they know him." 

"The picture says it all." 

"He looks fascinating," the model comments. "But isn't he in jail now?" 

"That," Neal agrees. "He is." 

Neal agreeably goes with the critic and the model until they're in front of the Kate portrait. Peter follows, unwilling to interrupt, hoping to catch Neal alone instead. Peter isn't sure if Neal sees him and chooses to ignore him or if the critic is important enough that Neal is too focused to notice him. One more penguin suit among the flock likely doesn't leap out and Neal has reason to be distracted. This is the most important night of his career.

"Amazing," the critic murmurs, sounding breathless. He lets go of Neal to step forward, nearly hypnotized by the painting.

The model scowls at the canvas and pigment. "You loved her," she accuses Neal playfully.

Amusement and melancholy color Neal's answer. "I did." 

Proving she has some brains beneath the unreal red hair and avant-garde make-up, she glances at Neal and adds, "You hated her too." 

Neal's mouth curves into a rueful smile. "I did. You see that?" 

"Yes, and I can see you're in love with someone else." She leans close and presses a chaste kiss to Neal's cheek. "I need another drink and someone who will sleep with me tonight. Good luck with whoever it is and if you ever need a subject, remember me." She strides away in a flutter and swish of asymmetric, hand-painted sea foam satin that promises there is absolutely nothing between it and her skin where it bothers to actually cover said skin. An appreciative smile crosses Neal's face. Like Peter, he likes smart and beautiful.

The critic is lost in another world, studying Kate's image, so the coast is clear. Peter takes a place next to Neal and sees him startle subtly before recovering his aplomb. His voice isn't quite even. "Peter." 

"Neal."

They stand shoulder to shoulder, Peter looking at Neal's handsome profile, until Neal finally gives him a sidelong look, barely turning his head. "I didn't think you'd come." 

"You didn't send me an invitation." 

That brings Neal around, brows drawn together, mouth opened in a nascent protest.

"Jones gave me his invite," Peter adds. "He sends his congratulations." He glances around again. Most of the paintings, except those reserved like Kate and Adler's portraits, have discreet markers next to them: sold. Despite Peter's worries, Neal's showing is a shining success. He should have known it would be, with June and El involved, along with Neal's talent. He adds, "You deserve this." 

Neal doesn't demur. False modesty isn't one of Neal's flaws.

"Is that why you didn't send me an invitation?" Peter asks eventually, before admitting, "Because you deserved better than the way I acted?" 

"You were supposed to get one." A lock of hair falls over Neal's eye as he shakes his head. "El and Moz did the invitations." 

"That explains it." Peter suspects Neal's mysterious friend wouldn't, as Peter's Gran put it, cross the street to piss on him if he was on fire.

The critic turns back to them and physically recoils at Peter's stay-away glare. Neal ignores him, watching Peter intently now.

"Why did you come, Peter?" Neal's uncertain, his voice soft, and Peter thinks he's one wrong word away from bolting, one blow away from breaking, and curses himself.

He fears he'll say the wrong thing, imply something he doesn't mean, leave out what's critical, wound Neal again without meaning too. Wrapping Neal in a hug would be better, but not when he doesn't know if Neal would welcome it, not in the middle of his triumph. The last thing Peter wants is to chance ruining this for him.

Peter holds out his hand, fingers open, waiting for Neal to see. Neal looks bewildered, but sways closer, into Peter's space. Peter doesn't think Neal even knows what he's doing, but it makes hope come alive inside him. So close, Peter can pick out every tiny imperfection that makes Neal beautiful instead of plastic. He wants to smooth the pad of his thumb over Neal's cheekbone. He wants to rest his hand on the nape of Neal's neck and use its gentle weight to draw Neal to him.

Desperate, Peter waves his hand at Kate's picture to stop himself from touching and trying to take what Neal gave him before. He sees Neal realize what's gone, hears Neal's breathless, "You," and risks looking into his eyes again now that Neal gets it. Neal painted Kate to let her go. Peter did this, this small thing he should have done years ago, and definitely before he reached for Neal for the first time. He wonders if he somehow stopped breathing and didn't know it, because the wonder and forgiveness he finds in Neal's gaze loosens a tight knot in Peter's chest and he breathes out in relief that feels too big to be just from this moment.

Neal moves fast when he wants to. He catches Peter's gesturing hand and his fingers caress over the indentation left by Peter's wedding ring. The sensation makes Peter shudder with desire, desire Neal feels and recognizes too. Neal goes still, his pupils flaring huge and dark, and he inhales. The quiet sound of that tells Peter everything. "Yes?" he asks, to be sure though, because he's misread things with Neal more than once.

Neal's hand turns and clasps Peter's, warm dry palm pressing against Peter's, holding on tightly, and he gives a short, almost jerky nod. "Yes." The splint is gone; Neal's finger healed straight and strong again, flexing with the others.

Peter tugs Neal's hand. "Let's get out of here." 

Neal doesn't shift, though Peter feels the shiver of want run through him. He shakes his head at Peter. "I'm not walking out on my gallery opening, Peter." He states it the way Peter would declare a case took priority.

Elizabeth told him, Peter realizes, more than once. His art fills the place in Neal that being an agent occupies in Peter.

He squeezes Neal's hand. "Okay. We're here for the long haul. If you want to, we'll be here until the cows come home." 

Neal gives him a slightly disbelieving look. "The cows?" he repeats. A smile takes over his face. "You're so smooth." 

A close-mouthed smile curls up the corners of Peter's mouth in response.

Peter sticks with Neal through the next hour, nodding when anyone asks who he is and Neal introduces him, but trying his best to fade into the background. Neal keeps him from succeeding most of the time, standing closer than casual, murmuring comments and asides about some of the art world mavens attending that have Peter swallowing guffaws, and never once letting go of his hand. Neal does everything except pin matching notes on their lapels saying 'together'.

Peter figures he is too damned lucky to believe and lets himself nudge Neal's shoulder, lean close, and go on holding Neal's hand.

Once, Neal even points out his old auction house boss, who has the gall to approach Neal.

"I didn't realize you knew June Ellington, Neal. If she's ever interested in moving any of her collection, we'd very much like to handle the sale." 

Peter's amazed and kind of wants to punch the man, but Neal just answers serenely, "You'll need to speak with our agent, Mr. French." 

"And who's this?" the man asks, looking over Peter and Neal's hands locked together with faint surprise.

Peter takes real pleasure in introducing himself and acquainting this jerk with a few facts. "I believe you met a ex-colleague of mine once. Fowler. He's no longer employed, though. I'm Special Agent Peter Burke, Federal Bureau of Investigation. Neal and I are together." 

Neal turns to Peter, a question in his eyes, and whatever he finds in Peter's expression lights him from the inside. Neither of them pay any attention to Neal's old boss huffing and moving on.

"Who's French?" Peter asks when they're alone again.

"Mozzie." Neal answers but he's still, obviously, stuck on Peter acknowledging they're together. Peter realizes Neal expects absolutely nothing from his partners, nothing except eventual abandonment. Taking off the wedding ring showed Neal Peter had let go of dreaming of Elizabeth, but it hadn't told him Peter was committed to him. He's starting to see that Neal won't ask for what he needs, never mind what he wants.

"I'm not hiding who you are to me," Peter promises quietly.

"Oh." Neal pauses. "But your job." 

"The FBI doesn't ask, because the FBI doesn't care." It's not totally true. Diana's faced plenty of shit over her orientation despite the official policies, and there are always the assholes that think two women together is hot but still object to two men, but Peter has enough seniority he isn't worried for himself. Hughes is a good boss and Diana's already done the hard work of being the first person out in the unit. Besides, "I'm not going to insult you or Diana by hiding or lying." 

Neal's eyes widen. "Wow. That's... " 

"What?" 

"Really sexy," Neal whispers huskily.

Peter steals a quick kiss, because he can, smiling himself. He's damned glad he's always known he was bisexual. He isn't going to make Neal's life hell over worries about being called gay. At least there's one upside to being involved with Peter. "I'm proud of you. I'm proud to be with you." 

"Really, really sexy," Neal repeats afterward, licking his lips, a flush coloring his cheekbones.

Well past two in the morning, the last guest totters out, leaving only the gallery staff, the caterers, June, Mozzie, El, Peter and Neal. Diana and Christie are long gone. Diana smirked at Peter when she saw him standing next to Neal, hand resting without thought at the small of Neal's back. She hugged Neal too. There was something whispered about a bet and Jones that Peter is certain he's better off not knowing. The words 'office betting pool' will make him blanch the rest of his life.

"I need to thank June before she goes home," Neal says.

Peter watches him go. Neal's doffed his coat, but left on his silk-backed waistcoat, though he's rolled his sleeves to his elbows and undone his tie. Peter wishes he'd been the one to do that. He watches Neal kiss June on both cheeks before offering her his arm and walking her to the door where her driver is waiting. She pats Neal's cheek and says something that has Neal laughing, the open collar of his shirt displaying the elegant line of his throat and jaw. Peter's mouth goes dry and he can't look away.

He snaps out of his reverie and finds himself being considered, not in a friendly fashion, by Neal's off the grid friend Mozzie, who is apparently styling himself Robert French, art agent, these days.

Mozzie straightens his silk cravat, heavy rings gleaming on his fingers, uses a silk handkerchief to polish the thick lenses of his black-framed glasses before putting them back on, and nods to himself.

"I will wreck you if you hurt him again," he states quite calmly. "And then your lovely ex-wife ‒ you are an actual idiot, by the way ‒ will really make you suffer." 

"Believe him," Elizabeth says as she joins Mozzie.

"Of course," Peter agrees dryly.

"I always wanted a little brother," Elizabeth goes on. She's as beautiful as Peter has ever seen, glowing with the success of the event and happiness for Neal and a fierce protectiveness that once centered on Peter and their marriage. Neal has become hers in some way and Peter can't find it in him to be jealous. He can't find the ache and want he's felt toward Elizabeth since she left him either and it's a massive relief. His heart is his to give again; it always was, but he hadn't felt it before. Neal's not second best, the one he'll be with because he can't be with El; Neal's the only one Peter wants now.

He looks past El and smiles as Neal approaches them looking apprehensive along with tired and happy. He brightens as he meets Peter's gaze.

Elizabeth sweeps Neal into a tight hug immediately, dark head to dark head so alike they could be brother and sister, and Neal hugs her back blissfully, obviously soaking in the affection and support she's offering. It reminds Peter how little he knows about Neal's past, how much he has yet to learn about someone he loves. There will be time, though; he'll make it, for Neal. Strange to think, but he knows El will help; she'll keep him from forgetting and making the same mistakes he did with her.

"Well done, mon frère, well done," Mozzie declares once Elizabeth releases Neal, making Peter wonder again about all the things he doesn't know about Neal. How did Kate's sometime conman partner end up as Neal's best friend? Mozzie is a little more awkward than El but he folds Neal into an embrace that's obviously heartfelt.

Neal hugs Mozzie back without the thread of uncertainty that holds him back when he hugs Peter, sure of his welcome. Peter wants to blame Kate for that damage, but he thinks it's just part of Neal, how he was made well before Kate came into his life. Maybe she exacerbated Neal's fears, maybe she didn't, but she's gone, and Peter only made it worse. He'll have to work to convince Neal that he isn't going away again, but one day, he's going to make up for the mistakes he's made with Neal.

Neal lets go of Mozzie and the hesitation is there before Peter pulls him close, locking that lean warmth against him and holding on until Neal embraces him just as tightly. He understands how wired Neal's been only when he relaxes into Peter, ruffled hair silky against Peter's cheek. Peter rubs his face against it for a breath before Neal turns his head and kisses the line of his jaw.

"Get a room," Mozzie comments when Peter kisses Neal back, taking his time to do it thoroughly.

"Pay no attention to him," Elizabeth interrupts archly. "If I was still married to Peter, I'd be suggesting a threesome right now." 

They ignore him, though Peter thinks the former is a great idea. His bedroom or Neal's loft, any place with the privacy to remove Neal's clothes piece by piece and press him down on clean sheets. Ignoring Elizabeth's risque comment is harder and Neal actually blushes. Peter rubs his back and gives Elizabeth a look telling her to stop teasing Neal, who isn't as familiar as Peter with her secretly raunchy sense of humor.

"Champagne?" El suggests, taking Peter's hint. "There are a couple bottles and some food left... " 

Neal's stomach rumbles and he winces. Peter blinks and realizes how surreal their current situation is. He's just been kissing his boyfriend in front of his ex-wife, who wants to feed them all. It should be much more uncomfortable than it is. Neal's tense again and it isn't out of embarrassment because he's hungry.

"Did you eat anything today?" El demands.

"Too nervous." Nerves sound in Neal's voice right then too.

"Come on then." She waves them all toward the backrooms of the gallery, where the caterers are slowly packing up. Peter loops his arm around Neal's slim waist and, along with Mozzie, they follow.

Neal smiles as Elizabeth commandeers an open bottle of champagne, glasses, and a saran-covered plate of finger foods. Her hair has come down and she tucks it behind her ears, an old habit to keep it from tangling in her earrings.

"To a great success," she says.

They ring their glasses together and drink, then settle into eating and discussing how the showing went. Mozzie demanded a minimum of four figures for the larger canvases and got it for all of them. The offers for the Adler and Kate portraits edge higher. Mozzie looks smug and Neal keeps stopping and just smiling at everyone.

El kicks her high heels off and flexes her toes. It amuses Peter when he realizes Mozzie can't keep his eyes away from her. Neal leans against him, boneless and weary. Peter's getting the idea they may not be having hot sex when they get home ‒ whichever home ‒ because this showing has sapped even Neal's normally boundless energy. They work their way through the rest of the bottle and Neal's weight against his shoulder grows heavier and heavier, until Peter looks to the side and realizes Neal has slipped into sleep.

Peter picks up his glass and lifts it again, gathering Mozzie and El's attention with a simple look.

"To Neal Caffrey," he toasts softly and they join him.

~*~

Neal swings open the door to his loft and lets Peter follow him inside. It reminds him of the first night he followed Peter into his apartment. He pauses just inside and Peter crowds up behind him, one hand coming to rest on Neal's shoulder, the other on his hip.

Just to reassure himself, Neal turns his head and checks again that Peter's wedding ring is gone. It still doesn't seem real, the successful showing and then Peter appearing beside him, asking without words for Neal to accept him back.

Truthfully, Neal thinks he should tell Peter to go to hell. He isn't going to because he wants Peter here with him. It's a flaw in his personality, the same weakness for love that led him to taking Kate back over and over.

He'll give Peter this second chance.

Even as he leans back into Peter's arms, he's bracing himself, building new walls to protect himself if it all goes wrong. Not a good way to start a relationship.

"You get one more chance," Neal says. It's easier, not seeing Peter's face as he speaks.

Peter nuzzles against Neal's neck, making him shiver, and answers, "That's more than I deserve." 

"You're my second chance too, I guess," Neal admits.

Peter kisses him with a dedicated care that melts Neal's doubts, a brush of lips and the rasp of stubble against Neal's chin, then his tongue delicately seeking a part in Neal's lips. The fabric of Peter's tuxedo jacket crumples under Neal's fingers. Peter pulls him in so close Neal's shirt studs dig into his sternum and Neal pulls away, laughing quietly, and rubs his chest.

Peter gets it, commenting, "Ow." 

Neal smiles self-deprecatingly. "Yeah. You mind if we get undressed before this goes anywhere else?" 

"As long as it's going to the bed eventually." 

"Dog." 

He begins stripping on the way to the high, luxurious bed he hasn't slept in for weeks. June's staff has been in, so he's sure the sheets are clean, though maybe stale by now. A soft rustle tells him Peter is undressing too. They should talk. Neal's too exhausted for that, he thinks. He takes off his cuff links ‒ Byron's ‒ and drops them onto the first flat surface. His waistcoat follows, then the shirt studs that derailed the kiss by the door.

Shirt, shoes, socks, undershirt, trousers, all gone, until Neal stands by the bed in his boxers, staring at Peter as he finishes undressing too. His gaze rests on that mole at the base of Peter's throat. Every time they've been in bed together, he's kissed it.

"Don't do that to me again," Neal blurts.

Peter pulls his undershirt over his head and gravely meets Neal's gaze across the bed, white cotton balled in his hands, fingers kneading. "Do you want me to promise?" 

"Just don't." Neal doesn't believe in promises, not even from someone like Peter. He knows how intentions become corrupted.

"Okay," Peter says and tosses his undershirt away. "I shouldn't have acted the way I did, even if I wanted to end it. And _I didn't_ , Neal ‒ " 

"Then _why?_ " 

Peter sits down on the edge of the bed. Neal stays on his side, on his feet, out of reach and well aware of it. This isn't when he meant to ask that question ‒ he isn't sure he ever meant to ask ‒ but it's out there now.

"It's not fair to say you scared me," Peter says while staring down at the coverlet. "You didn't. I scared me." He lifts his gaze. "Neal, I nearly shot to kill, I wanted Vincent Adler dead just because he'd threatened you." 

"I don't understand." 

"Everything I stand for, all the things I believe in... " Peter hesitates before finishing quietly, "I'd throw everything away for you. If you'd been running a con, I'd have let you go. I'd break rules for you I wouldn't have even for Elizabeth. If you ever break the law, I'll look the other way, I'll cover for you, I'll even run with you. I'd let you go if you didn't want me. All you need to do is ask." 

Neal doesn't know what to say to that. It's so much more than he imagined Peter felt for him, but it's not entirely good. He doesn't want to be the guardian of Peter's morals. He doesn't want to be the reason Peter throws away any part of himself.

"I don't want you to do any of that," he says in a small voice. He gave Kate all that and it hurt. He doesn't want to hurt Peter.

"I know, Neal." 

"Okay?" 

Peter smiles and holds out his hand. Marshaling his confidence, Neal crawls onto the bed and takes Peter's warm, firm hand in his. He's about to wrap his arms around Peter when a yawn overtakes him.

Immediately, Peter stifles a yawn of his own. "I guess we can do the rest of this in the morning," Peter says with a hint of humor.

Neal isn't exactly a morning person, but he does like morning sex. He grins at Peter. "I'll hold you to that." 

They pull each other in and down into a tangle of limbs and bare skin and comfort. Neal's filled with a hope, shining and delicate as a blown art glass ornament, that this time everything will be okay. Love is like glass too, paradoxically beautiful, brittle and enduring, forged in heat, and still fluid even when it appears solid. A sharp blow can shatter it, but remain faithful and with care it will last a lifetime.

He and Peter, they can remain faithful.

The End

**Author's Note:**

> Some dialogue re-purposed from the pilot in one scene. Thanks to my betas eretria, lexstar29, and murron, and to ongiara for the marvelous art.


End file.
